Saarburger Rausch, Riesling, Auslese, Lange, Goldkap, 2010

Zillikens auction lot 2010 Saarburger Rausch Riesling Auslese gold capsule A.P. #3 has an awfully difficult act to follow in its non-auction counterpart, and it begins by changing the subject to a dominance of luscious, effusive tropical fruits: mango, papaya, pink grapefruit ... a bit like the Spatlese A.P. #8s fruits raised to another power and accompanied by copious honey and subtler admixtures of caramel and white raisin. There isnt the clarity or penetration in this wine that accrued to its non-auction counterpart, but the creamy yet juicy exuberance of honey- and caramel-coated tropical fruits rolls on almost smotheringly in the finish. If you subscribe to Erni Loosens hamster metaphor for nobly sweet Riesling, this Auslese might well harbor enough fat to hibernate from here to the three hundredth July Fourth celebrations. As for the requisite energy, I dont think there is any lack of horsepower here; its simply out-of-sight under the hood. Hanno and Dorothee Zillikens 2010 collection has served for some controversy in that they not only like Schaefers in Graach adopted the minority position that de-acidification should be to wine, not must, but also in this respect unlike Schaefers performed acid-adjustments throughout their residually sweet line-up. Not that the extreme nature of what they eventually bottled could possible fail in itself to raise eyebrows. To declare myself up front (not that this isnt evident from my scores!): I found this years collection chez Zilliken utterly awesome and cannot imagine that somehow seeds of early decline or subsequent disappointment are harbored in any of these wines on account of their levels of acid having been trimmed from the perilous heights where nature had left them. The view is dizzying enough (as befits the name Rausch) at the altitudes Hanno Zilliken chose for these Rieslings flight paths. It was the tiny, millerandaged berries with their thick skins and the extreme, protracted shriveling by wind and botrytis that characterized this vintage and that concentrated everything in the grapes including ripe acidity. But even such high extract and ripeness, insists Zilliken, often wouldnt have sufficed to achieve balance. Maybe in their youth, but once the baby fat was gone the acids would have come through too aggressively. He grants, though, that experience with acid levels as high as these was formerly confined to unripe vintages (such as several he suffered through when he took over his familys estate in the 1980s) or Eiswein. If youre talking about a half a gram or one gram of acid adjustment, youre talking there about 50 or 100 liters of totally de-acidified and filtered wine blended back into a thousand liter fuder, and I just dont see any danger. For the first two weeks, all we did was seek- and pick-out shriveled material, narrates Zilliken, who when I ask him about his main harvest, replies, laughing: What harvest? There really wasnt much left to do after that! But those grapes that did remain healthy and green were incredibly stable. We let them hang and then picked them at the very end for our dry wines which we didnt de-acidify. There was no Q.b.A., Kabinett, or Spatlese (he means by must weight): Auslese was the least that we harvested. After the 2005s, Zilliken sums-up, we thought we could never again see such a vintage of superlatives; yet 2010 in some ways begins where 2005 left off. Only in Pradikat-labeling did this differ from previous top Zilliken collections. Waiting for Eiswein was judged a fools errand since Eiswein-like concentration and acidity pervaded the lot, which in turn, Zilliken thought, kept any from having genuine B.A. or T.B.A. character. An I-dont-know-how-they-did-it, but feeling accompanied me as I toured what this estate had wrought in 2010. Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA 800 596 9463