The as usual dry-tasting, late-picked, and eventually late-released Battenfeld Spanier 2010 Riesling CO – for more about whose blend and history see my account of the 2009 in issue 192 – suggests the aromas of flowering and leafy things inside a greenhouse, and is further informed by apricot and the prominent piquancy of its pit and tart chew of its skin. Corpulent and very obviously ripe, its finish is handicapped by bitterness and lack of primary juiciness such as happily informed so many of its immediate siblings. And it’s hardly flattered by the comparison with its 2009 predecessor. I’ve only once tasted an instance of this cuvee that had had a couple of years’ bottle age, but that experience coupled with my intuitions about this particular vintage doesn’t convince me that long-term attention much less a long wait would be justified.This year’s Battenfeld-Spanier collection – which, in Oliver Spanier’s unavoidable absence, I tasted with his father-in-law Roland Gillot – proved on the whole far more generous in vinous personality than that of nuptial partner-estate Kuhling-Gillot. And while the higher-alcohol and more aggressive phenolics in this estate’s Grosses Gewachs bottlings had in the past led me to sometimes prefer their lighter, more elegant and refreshing, if ostensibly lesser, “village” cuvees, in 2010 the crus were neither alcoholically-freighted nor – with one exception – overly astringent. (Incidentally, I missed tasting this year’s generic Battenfeld-Spanier Riesling.)Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799

The late-picked Battenfeld Spanier 2008 Riesling CO – which won’t be sold until 2011; and for more about whose conception, consult issue 185 – reflects its ripeness and long skin contact in faintly chewy aspect, cyanic apple pit bitterness, heady musk melon, and honeyed richness. Imposingly rich and polished, I still find its rather static personality and its lack of refreshment or of vintage-typical levity slightly disappointing. Still, this is far finer than the corresponding, decidedly awkward 2007. While the residual sugar is barely above the legal threshold for trocken, glycerin, and sheer ripeness of flavors lend a very slight sense of sweetness. Whether this bottling will prove worth following for a decade as its creators Oliver Spanier and Carolin Gillot intend is a question I must leave open.Oliver Spanier – for a bit about whose distinctive sites and methods see issue 185 – harvested his 2008 vintage Rieslings from mid-October through the first week of November, and reports having performed no de-acidification.Importer: Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279-0799