From eighty year-old vines, and tasted from cask, the Van Volxem 2006 Kanzemer Altenberg Riesling Alte Reben also displays a yeasty fermentative overlay, beneath which ripe pineapple, grapefruit, and sweet floral notes emerge. Expansive, voluminous, even powerful on the palate, this nevertheless displays no creamy or plush side because the sense of sheer extract and the wet stone mineral character are more than equal to its ripeness of fruit and create a palpable firmness of touch. Fascinating stony and saline manifestations of minerality, bittersweet nuttiness and herbal concentration, exotic floral perfume and nearly over-ripe fruit flavors inform a long, very slightly sweet finish, but a faint hint of heat intrudes from the wine’s alcoholic richness. Time will tell whether this impressive Riesling succeeds in taming and fully harnessing its headstrong, heady side, though in any event I would expect it to be worth following for more than a decade.