Zind Humbrecht Pinot Gris Clos Windsbuhl Trie Speciale SGN 2005 (375ML)

96-98 WA

Having been harvested with well over 200 degrees Oechsle, Humbrecht elected to give a special name to his (at the time of my tasting) still-fermenting 2005 Pinot Gris Clos Windsbuhl Selection de Grains Nobles Trie Speciale. (The Clos Jebsal S.G.N.s of 1994 and 2002 were also labeled “Trie Speciale.”) He expects this to take at least another year to (barely) reach the legal status of wine, but says it has fermented steadily though very slowly since was brought in. Mega must weights and high boytrytis are not the stock and trade of Clos Windsbuhl, and conditions have to be precisely propitious, Humbrecht says, to achieve anything remotely this intensely botrytized. Staging a remarkable display of clear, intensely-concentrated yet fresh fruit – peach, apricot, tangerine – both in the nose and on the palate, only this wine’s sheer (indeed, near-gelatinous) viscosity and the apple and quince jelly, caramel, and honey that gradually join its flood – a flood that leaves behind a phenomenally layered depth of fresh, dried, and jellied fruits – betray its mega-ripeness and complete botrytization. Outrageously bright citricity masks what is bound to be at least mid-300s of grams of residual sugar. This already rates at least 98 out of 100 on a scale of improbability, and is apt to be virtually ageless in bottle. David Schildknecht - The Wine Advocate