Riesling Rangen De Thann Clos St Urbain 2008

Entirely dry at only 13% alcohol, the Zind-Humbrecht 2008 Riesling Rangen Clos Saint Urbain leads with a site-typically pungent amalgam of peat, toasted caraway, and kelp; lemon and tangerine oil. Intense citricity, pungent smokiness, iodine piquancy, and crushed stone minerality persist on a firm palate and into a finish that is apt to strike some tasters as austere, and which incorporates a tactile sense of phenolic intensity, almost a tanninity. Olivier Humbrecht thinks this take-no-prisoners Rangen will reveal itself to be one of his best wines of the vintage, and it is definitely in the impressive, rather aggressive mold of the 2007, while avoiding the Scylla and Charybdis of high alcohol or high residual sugar on which some other recent vintages of this wine have run aground. I would anticipate two decades of interest and suggest waiting several years before revisiting.

Score: 92

David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate, RobertParker.com 01 May 2011