DostertKarambolage 2022 (750ml)

I’m told the French word “Karambolage” means “collision” in English; Google translate confirms this to be the case. This is Dostert’s calling card wine and for him one of the most important wines he makes. For 2022 it is roughly a third Elbling, a third Chardonnay and a third Pinot Gris. Because of the extreme dryness of the vintage, Dostert did more skin contact than normal, hoping to pull from the skins more nutrients to help the fermentation. In the end, this is one of the more structured and “funky” Karambolages he has made. With ten days of maceration, the wine is structured and chewy and bracing. Because he wanted to make sure this wine had density, the vines that normally produce the Elbling “Alte Reben” are in this wine; there is no Elbling “Alte Reben” in 2022, which almost makes me want to cry.

The wine is a beautiful color, resembling freshly squeezed peach juice in its pink, fleshy tones delicately washed with salmon. As with all of Dostert’s wines, it is curt and clean, faceted and delicate, yet with a lot of flavor: stony fresh, bright tones of lemon pith, green apple, citrus oils, mineral water, just barely ripe strawberries, even vague hints of cranberry and other red fruits, very perfumed and tart and aromatic. All the notes are dilute and gauzy, yet lingering and present, floating and persistent. This is a beautiful and complex wine that flirts with being raw and Chablis-like, structured and textural like a miniature orange-wine, and red-fruited like a rosé, though it is also not at all like any of those. I love this.