2007 Rauenthaler Nonnenberg Riesling

The Breuer 2007 Rauenthaler Nonnenberg Riesling trocken is less austerely dry and prickly – above all, offers more textural allure – than this year’s Rudesheimer Berg collection. Village-typical suggestions of violets mingle with bitter notes of fruit pit and lemon zest on a silken-textured but exceedingly bright palate, and the stubborn finish here is intriguingly suggestive of things mineral. This should be worth following for 8-10 years, although the wine’s considerable bitterness needs to remain in check. I was extremely curious to see how the normally early-harvesting Heinrich Breuer and Hermann Schmoranz would approach this vintage in which the overwhelming consensus among growers was that the fruit must – despite its remarkable head start – hang late. But by the time I tasted their collection, it was evident that Rudesheim’s slopes were – depending on one’s view – blessed or cursed by having ripened much earlier and more precipitately than nearly any other German Riesling vineyards. That said, the always lean style of dry Breuer Rieslings shaded a bit too far into the green spectrum in some of this year’s renditions, and no members of this collection (including the one bearing that word on its label!) make concessions to charm. The levels of acidity truly are without precedent in the modern history of the estate (2004 came closest in that regard), levels more appropriate to the formidable single-vineyard nobly sweet wines that Breuer has crafted, and which – despite none exceeding 300 half bottles in production – will be sold half in 2009 (alongside the dry single-vineyard wines) and half at some future date. Breuer, incidentally, avows that it is deceptive to point to increasingly early harvests at his or any other top address solely as indications of climate change, because at least for most of the late 20th century, he insists, yields were much higher, thus demanding longer hang-time. Imported by Classical Wines, Seattle WA 206 547 0255