Battenfeld Spanier's Wild Child The First Year they Hit Kirchenstuck Out of the Park (So It's Still Relatively Cheap) The German Grand Cru That Everyone Can Afford

I've offered 2 of the 3 Battenfeld-Spanier Grosses Gewachs/Grand Crus in the past before, the

baroque and finesse driven Hergott and the mineral driven Frauenberg in '13 and '14. They make a 3rd Grosses Gewachs and while I liked it, it was not quite where I wanted so that I could offer it ...until 2014.

Today, welcome to the Fass Selections Family the 2014 Battenfeld SpanierKirchenstuck Grosses Gewachs for $42.99 a bottle (on 3) and a special case pricing of $39.99.  This wine has the structure to age and is so good, all of your friends should try it. To find a GG of this quality for this price is not heard of.

What intrigues me about the '14 Kirchenstuck is the combination of depth, concentration and its tamed animal nature.  As we like Cornas, Pommard and Gevrey for their animal nature, this shimmering GG has it in spades. This wine, like all of the Battenfeld Spanier wines, is perfectly made but the Kirchenstuck is a real wow me, fascinating wine. The wild child as I like to call it. It has uncommon depth in '14 and an amazing blend of sweet, floral and feral aromas that keep expanding and wafting more and more as the wine aerates. It has a really deep and very mineral aromas, with that feral floral thing going on. Truly prodigious power and concentration that I just have not seen in Kirchenstuck before along with a serious acid spine. It is very full-fruited in the mouth with intense citrus and apple. Volume is a word that comes to mind. This is the most serious Kirchenstuck so far, and it is so drinkable and juicy which is what '14 is all about. The structure is incredible and turns this into a wine you experience rather than taste. The delineation is like a laser it is so precise. There is an amazing juxtaposition between the juicy, giving fruit and the acid lasers. If you liked the 2013 Hohen-Sulzen this is a bigger, grander, deeper, more complex and ageable version of that. In 2013 Stephan Reinhardt commented that is had less precision in 2013 than Hergott and Frauenberg, and I agreed with that statement, but in '14 it is just as precise as the other two and deserves a place next to the Hergott and Frauenberg in the cellar.

2014 at Battenfeld Spanier is nothing short of sensational. Across the board from the Estate Riesling to the 3 GGs, the balance, precision, insane levels of vivid fruit, terroir expression and length have to be tasted to be believed. It is as good as some of the epic collections I have tasted in the past. The 2001 Donnhoffs, 01 and 02 DRCs, the 02s from Clos Rougeard, the 2012s from Herve Murat and the epic 2010s from Immich-Batterieberg.

Many of you know me through the e-mails and some of you are lucky or unlucky enough to meet me in person, depending on your perspective, but one thing that is known is I'm a pretty anal guy and I am a big planner, and that goes with Fass Selections. I have around 85% of the offers planned before the year starts. This is not a fly by the seat of the pants business. You can do that in retail because they are mostly bringing the wines to you. For me, I am seeking out the wines and as a result meticulous planning is needed. I have no salespeople knocking my door down, not a store full of wines, or tons of pre-offer sheets. In essence, I cannot wake up one day and say, what do I want to sell and have countless choices. But the advantage to that is that what I do sell, I believe in 100% as I import these wines. I don't have to sell any of these wines. I want to. The Kirchenstuck is a wine that I had to  and want to sell as it represents terrific value at one of the greatest dry wine estates in Germany.

2014 Battenfeld-Spanier Kirchenstuck GG - $44.99 

($128.97 3-pack, $479.88 case price) (LIMITED)