J.B. Becker, “Wallufer Walkenberg - Kabinett Trocken,” Rheingau, Germany 2008

• Style: Dry white wine

• Grape Varieties: Riesling

• Appellation: Walkenberg vineyard - Rheingau

• Bottle Size: 750mL

Do you remember that movie the Dark Crystal? Well, drinking the rieslings of J.B. Becker is probably what it would feel like to drink that crystal shard.

Notes from Vom Boden: The wines have an in-your-face, love-it-or-hate-it sensibility. They are unfailingly honest. They present a bizarre vocabulary: dried earth and rocks, herbs, something vaguely subterranean, a savory, briny, smoky atmosphere that slowly reveals fine layers of bright citrus. For all this depth and mysteriousness, Becker’s white wines are like Becker himself: angular, tensile with awkward elbows and muscle and sinew pulled tightly over a lean frame. They flaunt a rather prominent acidity that recalls the more nervy wines of the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer, though there is a weight, a density that speaks of the Rheingau. They seem to have more to do with great Chablis than with what we often think of as German Riesling.

The overall effect, one must say, is bewildering and inspiring. Becker seems to relish the paradox. If there is any grand system here, it is inscrutable.

Must have proof of age at time of pick up, 21 years or older