Weingut A.J. Adam Dhroner Hofberg Riesling Qba Feinherb, Mosel, Germany

點(diǎn)擊次數(shù)：2077

Adam’s 2011 Dhronhofberger feinherb – which was harvested in mid-October, then fermented and matured in two 1,000 and one 500 liter casks – “tasted good to me from beginning to end,” he remarks, “so I blended and bottled them without knowing the residual sugar level. But it turns out that the wine has 30 grams, and anybody who looked at the analysis would say ‘that will be way too sweet (to call feinherb).’ But it’s not.” Besides representing a remarkable balancing act, this represents a superb success in every other respect, too! Ripe pear and papaya are wreathed in bittersweetly-perfumed iris and musky peony on a fetching nose and a silken, uncannily buoyant, even delicate palate (despite 12% alcohol), leading to a finish correspondingly uplifting not to mention sustained. This beauty will be exciting to follow over the coming 10-15 years. In commencing his tenth harvest on October 1, Andreas Adam was setting a record. “But it was good I did,” he notes, adding that “early in the month we picked exclusively for Kabinett and Qualitatswein. We were in shorts and tee shirts. It was 28 degrees (82 F.) and we only picked in the morning. But by the time we finished on November 1, we were all in heavy jackets.” Mid-October brought some fine botrytis that Adam wasted no time in picking-out and sorting for small volumes of nobly sweet elixirs, the culmination of which is a 280 Oechsle T.B.A. that was not finished fermenting yet last autumn. “Honestly, I had some anxiety as fruit was coming in,” he confesses, “because there was really a large volume of grapes. I can tell you, our cellar was full. What we changed in terms of cellar technique in 2011,” he explains, “is that we didn’t permit any skin contact, didn’t even crush, but instead pressed (whole clusters) directly, like for Champagne.” Despite his success in 2011, the period of elevage was beyond merely stressful for Adam, as his cellar was shockingly vandalized right after his principal, March bottling, and his top dry wines (which he refers to as Grosse Gewachse) along with the barrels that held them, were contaminated and ruined. But speaking of barrels, Adam also got lucky in that respect last year, tapping a cache of impeccably-kept Fuder from a retiring grower. These will definitely come in handy, since in addition to recent plantings (some, sadly, lost to a deep February, 2012 chill), Adam continues to add parcels – for a total of nearly three dozen now – provided they possess old vines and/or outstanding exposure. He doesn’t want to get so big that a hands-on approach is precluded, but his Geisenheim-trained sister will soon join him full-time, and he says he’ll meet the problem of too many superb old vineyard parcels and the need to jettison something less good when and if he comes to it. Speaking of March bottling, you can see from my notes that no matter how much sense it makes – indeed, how true it may be in many such instances – to say that extended lees contact and late bottling were critical to conveying to 2011s the necessary structure and complexity, Adam’s collection is a deliciously definitive if gentle counterexample. He has always been at pains to retain healthy lees, but captured fantastic results bottling after barely five months.Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

In addition to its modest residual sugar (by no means precluding what I would call a “dry taste”), Adam’s 2010 Dhronhofberger feinherb also received longer lees contact than did its Grosses Gewachs counterpart. (Lest there be any ambiguity in label identification, this bears the A.P. #3.) Botrytis-affected fruit had for the most part already been repeatedly picked from the relevant parcels so that the healthy grapes could hang until the end of the first week in November. Palpable extract richness and subtle silkiness are combined with a ravishing sense of levity (at 11.5% alcohol); and zesty, tartly fruit-skin-like, spicy tactile impingements lend energy and invigoration to a matrix that by turns suggests white peach, apple, quince, and mirabelle alluringly mingled with rich, piquant nut oils and (metaphorically) cooling herbal essences. A faint aura of high-toned distillate and wood smoke as well as a stony, smoky, and mouthwateringly saline mineral undertones add intrigue to this long-finishing beauty that I suspect will prove fascinating and delectably versatile for at least the next 12-15 years. Only thanks to the additional acreage he acquired last year, says Andreas Adam, was he able to offset the reduced yields of 2010 and come close to meeting a demand for his wines that has significantly increased. (And if you don’t now why it’s increased, my guess is you have yet to discover his wines!) Next year, additional parcels will come on-line particularly in cooler portions of the Dhronhofberg where it follows the Dhron heading away from the Mosel and into the Hunsruck hills. Adam has also acquired additional steep, mechanically inaccessible plots in the Piesporter Goldtropfchen whose old vines he feared would otherwise be at risk. “But I want to put most of my emphasis on Dhronhofberg,” he clarifies, “not compete with Theo and Johannes (Haart) who are the leaders in Piesport.” Adam is especially proud of recently restoring a Dhronhofberg parcel planted in 1973 to unusual density and elated over having been able to acquire what he believes is the last remaining terraced portion of this Einzellage, an almost perpetually breezy location nearly half of which had long ago gone to scrub. With yet more incredible good luck, Adam has latched onto some perfectly-maintained casks from a neighbor that will insure a consistent degree of reliance on fermentation and maturation in neutral oak. Picking in 2010 began already on October 15, in Piesport, “otherwise,” notes Adam, “some of that fruit would have gotten too ripe, because we’re talking about terraces that already in the 1990s were routinely reaching Oechsle in the 90s,” and was not completed until November 6. “It was a stressful harvest, with very small results on any given day. We did no chemical de-acidification and no malo-lactic either,” he asserts, “but we upped the length of maceration a bit to 18 hours, and in the feinherb wines we left behind additional residual sugar. We pumped some warm air into the cellar to promote spontaneous fermentation and that functioned really well. Most of the wines were finished by New Year’s: we must have a strong yeast population in our cellar. It was very cold last winter, so once the fermentations were done, we threw open the doors and got lots of tartrate precipitation.” The wines were separated from their gross lees early but stayed on their fine lees until bottling, which took place on the estate’s usual schedule, already in late March. “I’ve found that it’s on their fine lees that my wines acquire elegance,” contends Adam, “whereas if they spend too long on the full lees they can easily become too creamy for my taste.” In considering my prognostications of age-ability, readers should bear in mind not only that I have tried to be very conservative, but also that a track record is only now accumulating for this estate, whose first harvest was 2001. (Note too that on his presentation labels, Adam prints only the name “Hofberg” in large – gothic – letters, but I continue to refer to “Dhronhofberger” which, along with “Dhroner Hofberg,” is one of the two officially sanctioned ways of referring to this site.)Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300