2009 Riesling

In a day when wine-production facilities designed by famous architects are becoming almost too numerous to count, a visit to Burn’s old-fashioned cellar, filled to the brim with very old, large, dark oak barrels, is like entering a time warp. I always look forward to my visits to this estate, where I sit at Burn’s rickety old wooden desk and taste wine after wine that he pulls directly from the barrels lining the walls. The estate owns all of the famous Clos Saint Imer, located in the superb Goldert grand cru. Vines in this roughly five-hectare walled vineyard, arguably one of the greatest in Alsace, face southeast and are planted on well-drained stony calcareous soils. Special cuvées labeled “La Chapelle” can be wondrous. That said, keep in mind that Burn’s Sylvaner wines, made in a very rich, late-harvest style, may well be the best wines from this variety in the world. In my opinion, the only Sylvaners that even come close in quality are the BAs and TBAs made by the best producers in Franken (but Burn’s wines are much drier). As for 2012, Burn believes that Gewürztraminer fared best, followed by Riesling. He releases his wines slowly, and he still hadn't bottled a number of his 2012s when I visited last summer, so I plan to write about these wines after my next trip to Alsace. Nevertheless, should you visit his cellar, you'll still find wines from the 2007 and 2009 vintages available for sale. As I didn't publish tasting notes on these wines in my last article on Alsace in the International Wine Cellar, I retasted them all and include those notes here.