Saarburger Rausch Riesling Großes Gewächs 2010

Parker über: Saarburger Rausch Riesling Großes Gewächs

-- Parker: There is only a small lot (barely exceeding a 1,000 liter fuder) of Zilliken 2010 Saarburger Rausch Riesling Grosses Gewachs rendered from tiny, healthy, golden berries and consisting of a final blend with a bit of its halbtrocken “Diabas” counterpart that lifted its finished residual sugar to eight grams. A glorious nose of fresh orange, kirsch, orange blossom, coriander, iris, and sea breeze leads into a silken-textured, vibrantly juicy palate that combines those same elements, its maritime aspect reappearing as a compulsively saliva-inducing salinity. (It was precisely the lack of such salivation that made me most skeptical, readers of issue 192 might recall, as to the satisfaction at table or future value that would be derived from this wine’s vintage 2009 counterpart.) A site- (and presumably diabase-) typical smokiness adds to the intriguingly dynamic interaction of fruit and mineral elements in this Riesling’s impressively persistent and downright refreshing finish. That complex sense of interplay, along with an aura of refinement and surprising levity, set this superb success well apart not just from Zilliken’s inaugural 2009 Grosses Gewachs but also from the more overtly dense and texturally alluring (not to mention improbably outstanding) 2010 Riesling trocken. I can imagine this Grosses Gewachs being worth following for well more than a decade, though there is no track record chez Zilliken for a wine of this sort, and one scarcely ever has opportunity to drink what would come closest, namely an “old” generic Riesling trocken from this estate. 93/100