2005

Straw-coloured. Fairly understated smell of candied citrus peel, camomile tea and a hint of petrol.

The taste is so much fresher and more open: Wonderful rich sweetness, elegant ripe pineapple notes, the world's fruitiest camomile tea, the tiniest hint of caramel, good stable acidity, a mineral background. What makes this Spätlese wonderful is that it has the complex flavours of maturity (the typical lemon, peach and apricot aroma of young riesling is almost completely gone), but is still vibrant and fresh. It seems that, out of pure luck, I have opened it at a very good point in its development.

From a region not often talked about, a producer to watch out for.

So here I sit, listening to Billy Bragg and Wilco, waiting for a Riesling to reach drinking temperature, and I am really pleased with this French red. The winery, Domaine les Filles de Septembre, was named after the four daughters of wine makers Françoise and Roland Géraud. And Delphine is one of the four. If she is anything like this cuvée of Syrah and Carignan, she must be lovely indeed.

So far wines from the Van Volxem winery have not let us down, so when I came across a bottle of the 2005 Riesling from the Saar river at my favourite Battersea wine merchant last year (the notes are from September) I had to take it home with me.

A wine of shiny golden colour and a nice nose of mineral, smoothed over with caramel-plum and herbs, with the addition of a little petrol. In the mouth, a rich, almost saturated experience, a Riesling with some complexity and also well rounded.