The Weis 2006 Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Spatlese displays quite a yeasty, slightly funky veil of fermentative aromas but these largely dissipate with a shaking, revealing cassis, grapefruit, and gentian, accented by mint and white pepper. With admirable delicacy and refinement, this soothingly and creamily coats the palate, yet retains freshness and engaging ripe acidity to insure stimulation in a bitter-sweet yet not at all inharmonious finish tinged with mint, vanilla, quinine, and citrus oils. Trust me, the slight funk will pass, and this is well worth coveting for consumption between around bottle ages 8-30. Nik Weis has proven himself a master not only at judging balance in Riesling, but at successfully marketing well-balanced but not legally trocken wine to his countrymen. (Chapeau!) That was a good thing this vintage, he says, because he thinks many of the high must-weight wines he harvested would not have balanced either at significantly higher alcohol or residual sugar. I agree, having found his wines in the lower realms of residual sugar especially successful. The vintage demanded compromises in harvest strategy if not in ultimate quality. “There were wonderful shriveled berries in the Laurentius Lay,” for example, relates Weis, “and had I had another fifteen pickers or another few days, we could have harvested a Trockenbeerenauslese” as happened in 2005, when one of the greatest wines of the vintage resulted. “But I had Kabinett grapes in Piesport at that point that would no longer have been Kabinett if I had waited while the whole crew went picky gepidelt hatten. We had to deal in full parcels this year, not select.” The 2006 wines here were taken from their lees and bottled sooner than in most years.Importer: H. B. Wine Merchants, New York, NY; tel. (917) 402-0456