2017 Riesling Wallufer Walkenberg Spätlese trocken

“We always poker a bit,” observes Eva Becker, “but in 2017 we didn’t even begin harvesting until many others were finished,” specifically on October 5. This circumstance – a function in part of unusually late September bottling dates due to technical issues – in turn meant that much fruit had to be left in the vineyard, compounding the effects of low juice-to-skin ratio and leading to yields even more meager than those registered by Hans-Josef Becker from some of the “bad old,” under-ripe and meteorologically punishing vintages of the early ‘80s and before. Happily, though, qualitatively-speaking, 2017 is anything but a weak Becker vintage. (And even allowing for the overall paucity of wine from vintage 2017, there will be bottlings additional to those that I was permitted to taste curing my most recent, November, 2018 visit. At that time, the Beckers’ Pinot Noirs from vintage 2016 had not yet been bottled and they preferred to defer showing them. For many details about Hans-Josef Becker’s remarkable career and unique Riesling methodology, consult the extended introductions to my two previous sets of notes, focused on vintages 2015 and 2016.)