Ostertag’s 2007 Gewurztraminer Vignoble d’E Selection de Grains Nobles features orange marmalade, crystallized ginger, cinnamon candy, and caramelized peach. Almost overwhelmingly sweet (at 200 grams of residual sugar), it is undeniably pure, penetrating, and practically indelible. Celery salt and citrus rind offer the best hope of some push-back to the sweetness, but you just have to give up and go with the viscous flow where this wine is concerned. There will be those who are already thrilled with where it takes them, and then there will be those like me who curmudgeonly suggest it will take 30 years for this wine to get where I would want it to take me. Andre Ostertag was like most of his region’s best growers very selective about what he chose to bottle in 2006. He is especially enthusiastic about his uncompromisingly intense 2007s and the sense in which the Rieslings resemble a throwback to the moderate must weights and refreshing acidity that was common in Alsace before the string of warm vintages that has been nearly uninterrupted since 1988. I was surprised to find myself as impresses as I was with the 2007 Pinot Gris bottlings here, but Ostertag says it was simply unfair until very recently to compare his results with that grape to those with Riesling, because the vines of the former were too young. They’ve passed 20 years of age now, and that, he opines, is why they can start to show their real potential (and, I would add, stand up to Ostertag’s use of barriques). While I hate to take up space with this matter, readers should be aware that wines from this estate that formerly bore the village name “Epfig” will now merely be coded with the capital letter “E” because of certain limitations that the authorities have now imposed on the use of village designates and the definition of “village level” names. (Frankly, I wouldn’t even want to understand the regulation if I thought it would prove intelligible!)Importer: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524
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