2014 Scheurebe Ungsteiner Herrenberg Beerenauslese

Jan Eymael had his hands full this vintage, with black grapes and Gewürztraminer falling prey to the suzukii fruit fly, Auxerrois that already needed picking on September 10, and of course the usual race between ripeness and rot in Riesling. He once again deployed the powerful blowers he devised several years ago to run up and down the rows in the immediate aftermath of flowering in order to encourage uniform grape clusters by removing minuscule petal residues that can interfere with berry set. Fortunately, squeaky-clean and highly expressive dry Rieslings in bottle suggest that this technique did not encourage trapped moisture or rot to any greater degree than were experienced at other Pfalz estates, and Eymael is convinced that it was again, on balance, beneficial. The Grosse Gewächse were bottled in June, and they will all benefit from extended aeration. Interestingly, given the tendency this year for so many growers to permit their dry Rieslings to ferment to significantly lower-than-usual levels of residual sugar, Eymael, who has in several recent vintages let some Rieslings drop close to zero on that scale, did not opt for ultra-dryness in 2014.