2005 Riesling Muenchberg Vendanges Tardives

"A beautiful, easy vintage with more noble rot than 2004" was how Andre Ostertag described 2005. "We had classic Indian summer conditions that gave ripe fruit with good varietal character. We picked SGN fruit at the end of October in our T-shirts." Ostertag emphasized that he seeks "purity of terroir" except when he's making wines at VT or SGN richness. He continues to use barriques for his pinot gris and pinot noir ("but no more foudres"), and stainless steel for riesling, which he says requires a reductive environment.

Two thousand five and 2004 both featured bad Augusts, said Andre Ostertag, but the fall of 2004 continued difficult, as there was a lot of rain in October. In contrast, 2005 was "a Zen year: peaceful, no problems. The autumn was magic." That said, my tasting here turned up some very good 2004s, with firm acidity. Ostertag told me that he was unsure about the wines until the end of the fermentations, and he now believes that the quality of the vintage was saved by the fact that cool weather in August preserved the acidity in the grapes. We tasted on a miserably rainy morning and Ostertag told me he was stressed out by the weather, as he had hoped to begin the harvest on that very day. But he seemed pretty mellow to me, and he was obviously buoyed by the way his 2005s and 2004s showed.