Albert Boxler Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg Eckberg 2022

#84 Top 100 Wines of the Year 2024 - Vinous The 2022 Riesling Eckberg Sommerberg Grand Cru is on granite at 400 meters of altitude with very little topsoil. Eckberg is west of Vanne, more receded, so slightly cooler than Vanne. It is harvested a week later, getting more cool evening breezes. A touch of ripe Mirabelle verges into a beautiful tart russet pear peel streak. It's not that you can smell the texture, but you can feel it. The palate is as clear-cut as ever, bell-like, brilliant, with that uncompromising nakedness of stone but also imbued with that pithy, phenolic element which here almost touches slightly tart Mirabelle skin, lending more texture. Boxler also pours a bottle of Eckberg that has been open for two days, and this is instructive: the phenolics have knitted together, have less surface and arrest less, while fruit and freshness are all the more luminous. Wow. It swallows its 14% ABV. (Bone-Dry) The 2022 Grand Cru Sommerberg Riesling Eckberg is clear, fresh and fragrant like a perfume on the nose that represents a rocky and saline site high in altitude. Pure, finely juicy and savory on the palate, this is a dense, rich, intense, very long and concentrated Sommerberg. 13.5% stated alcohol. Natural cork. Rating: 95+