100% Riesling from Rheingau, Germany.

Organic, hand harvested and naturally fermented using indigenous yeasts.

This wine has notes of tart green apple skin and is resiney and floral with a salty oceanic minerality. On the palate, it's medium-light, but really poised and present with a direct apple and tart pear, citrus salt and almost bitter, phenolic grip that defines the finish and lingers all gravelly cool. It has character, it's refreshing and invigorating and leaves a beautiful glaze of bitter herbal elements.

The estate of J.B. Becker, contrasting with the manicured lawns of neighboring aristocratic estates, could be defined by its dirty-fingered, weathered-skin, mess-of-a-tasting room aesthetic. Hans-Joseph Becker's winemaking has less to do with a condemnation or critique of the noble establishment and more to do with a vision that is so singular and steadfast that it feels totally irrelevant whether anyone thinks Becker's "aesthetic" is genius or folly. It just is. 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. 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.