The rating for 2001 Domaine Zind Humbrecht Pinot Gris Clos Jebsal Selections de Grains Nobles Alsace is 95 points from Robert Parker and the tasting note - One can only call the 2005 Pinot Gris Clos Jebsal Selection de Grains Nobles “off the charts” if one doesn’t mean the charts on twelve of the last thirteen vintages of Pinot Gris from this site! Humbrecht readily admits it was not difficult to select these grapes, as the fruit was ripe so early and botrytis so complete. But he considers it a stroke of luck that this super-concentrate – even though it achieved only 7% alcohol, leaving behind an improbable 307 grams of residual sugar – fermented for nine months, which he believes will ultimately help it to achieve outstanding balance through the effects of barrel and lees. Tea, honey, apricot preserves, and fresh lemon practical assault you from the glass. In the mouth this is almost gelatinous, yet laser-like in its citric intensity and focus. And the resemblance to a Tokaji eszencia doesn’t stop with these phenomenally intense sensory characteristics - it is also true about this elixir (despite its having cleared the threshold of alcohol legally required for wine – a threshold from which Tokaji has recently and controversially been exempted) that it’s honestly hard to judge it today as wine. Count on this becoming more bearably concentrated in a mere 15-20 years, and on its outliving any who can read this note today.