2011 Trimbach Clos St. Hume a decadent aging petrol monster–tinged with brett and polished dusty fruit. 10 years to go EASY, just hitting its stride. Round and sharply delicious, the austerity of young Riesling turning to lavish perfection right before your eyes.

2013 Zind-Humbrecht Clos Windsbuhl PInot Gris swollen with tropical sweetness and floral… SOOO much lilikoi and jasmine. Blind, I would have thought this the gewurtz. Rich in body although a bit cloying, air flattened and thickened the texture to emphasize the sugar.

2015 Pierre Sparr shy and avoiding eye-contact. A rather dull, boring version of the variety. A bit of petrol livened things up, but nowhere were the things I look for in Gewurztraminer to spark my Tutonic aspirations. I need wines to be better than this.

2016 Smith-Madrone Spring Mt. ratchets petrol to all new levels–combined with steely minerality making young Riesling *austerity* a factor you can easily live with. Pear and apricot flushing out the core, stark acidity and grating structure creating a smokily dense vision of ponderous delicacy.

2015 Meyer-Fonne Gallus the only red at the tasting, a ridiculously funky lil bish dripping bandaid and fresh-cut-garden-hose over an earthy–quite fruitless–mid-section. With air, it richened and plumped, losing a bit of the nearly-off-putting barnyard and shit, blossoming into dank cherry revelations thickly coated in match-head and campfire cedar. A nose and entry tainted with rotten earthiness FAR beyond what most American Pinot-drinkers are comfortable with, I kept trying to grasp this wine, to slot it into Burgundian relevance. I am anxious to taste it tomorrow. A fascinating wine easy to dismiss and considerably beyond typical funky boundaries of spatburgunder, an incredibly interesting entry in the Pinot Noir sweepstakes.