Domaine Bott-Geyl Pinot Gris Sonnenglanz Vendanges Tardives, Alsace Grand Cru, France

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The 2010 Pinot Gris Grand Cru Sonnenglanz Vendanges Tardives was picked early which gives very precise and complex ripe fruit aromas intermixed with stony flavors. On the palate this is a very mineral and focused VT, dense, intense, long, salty and piquant, with a grippy, very stimulating finish.

Peach preserves, candied lemon rind, and a portabella-like note of fungus in the nose of Bott-Geyl’s 2006 Pinot Gris Sonnenglanz Vendange Tardive which comes to the palate intensely bright (it has high acid even by Riesling V.T. standards) and pungently zesty and spicy, but finishes slightly drying despite a certain sharpness and penetration. Bott claims it reminded him of a white Burgundy during its fermentation, but right now – even abstracting from the fact that its high acidity doesn’t translate into genuine vivacity or juiciness – the wine is also struggling to balance its well more than 100 grams of residual sugar. Perhaps this will pull itself together more – its sheer concentration is formidable – but I would cautiously monitor its evolution if I owned any. The ambitious Jean-Christophe Bott declassified ruthlessly in 2006, reducing by around half what is usually a very long litany of bottlings. Pinot Gris had the hardest time, he indicated; and 2007 was not easy for that variety here, either, because Bott’s holdings in the Furstentum – which had been his quality exception among Pinot Gris in 2006 – were among several of his vineyards hailed-on and declassified. For 2007 Bott did not even begin picking until the third week of October, generally managing to capture well-balanced ripeness, with wines often better-able to handle their residual sugar than I had experienced here in the 2004-2006 vintages. Various importers, including: Beaune Imports, Berkeley, CA, tel. (510) 559 1040 and Polaner Selections, Mount Kisko, NY; tel. (914) 244 0404

Suggestions of flambeed, caramelized, spiced peaches rise from the glass of Bott’s 2005 Pinot Gris Sonnenglanz Vendange Tardive. Viscous, oily, and caramelized on the palate and with gardenia-like inner-mouth perfume, this impressively-concentrated elixir – despite analytically high acidity – is ultimately tripped up by sheer sweetness, one of that increasing number of inscrutably sweet Alsace wines (think of this domaine alone!) that would require years in the bottle just to comprehend the direction in which its evolution is tending. Right now, we have enormous sweetness in search of resolution and enormous flavor intensity in search of an organizing principle. Young Jean-Christophe Bott is passionate about quality and unafraid to make sacrifices on its behalf. He has adopted a biodynamic regimen in the vineyards and is now holding most of his wines 6-24 months in bottle before release. Clarity and cleanliness run through all of these, and it is encouraging to taste so many Riesling that are uncompromisingly dry (although occasionally bitterness or alcohol intrude). Bott feels capable of encouraging dryness and balance in various ways in the vineyard and the cellar without ever intervening in or attempting to re-start sluggish fermentations. By no means all of the wines I tasted displayed strong personalities, but many of them gave reason to believe – as does Bott’s articulate advocacy – that this will be one of the more talked-about Alsace domains of the coming decade. Given the challenges that so many of his fellow-growers recorded with this variety in 2004, his success in bringing Gewurztraminer to subtly-ennobled ripeness in that vintage – while taking advantage of higher than usual acidities – is especially noteworthy.Importer: Eric Solomon Selections, Charlotte, NC; tel. (704) 358-1565