2008 Chateau Bela Riesling

Grapefruit and white peach along with refreshing, cool, herbal notes dominate the generic Muller 2008 Riesling Scharzhof, which incorporates fruit from the estate's considerable, steep Saarburg vineyards. This finishes with admirable refreshment and restrained sweetness, allying in the best vintage manner a sense of underlying extract with levity. I would plan to enjoy it over the next 2-3 years. Egon Muller finds merit in the comparison of 2008 with 1988 - or perhaps, as I suggested of his collection specifically, to 1969, a vintage with which, as he pointed out, the youthful 1988s were frequently compared. He notes that -half the 2008 harvest became Kabinett, and most of the rest Q.b.A.- but most of these Kabinetts would have been classified a grade higher in the, for its time, -classic Spatlese vintage- of 1988. That said, Muller and his team - who, unlike most of their Saar neighbors in search of a balance of dry and nobly sweet wines, do not spray against botrytis in summer - managed some superb selective harvesting this year, for which, he relates -the last week in October was the best time. At the end of October, it rained a bit again, and the botrytis was no longer so good. And that's why there is so little nobly sweet wine this year.- Apropos Kabinett, Muller takes a dim view of creeping residual sugar in wines so-labeled - confessing that he did not prove immune to that temptation - and is now bottling in the 30-35 gram range. He is always at pains to point out that he views and styles such wines in the manner traditionally associated with so-called Naturwein rather than in a manner especially associated with capital--K- Kabinett. Nonetheless, 2008 is one vintage where the Muller Kabinett bottlings exhibit precisely the delicacy that many of us consider the essence of that post-1971 category. For the most part, these 2008s - which, as a group, constitute a summit of their vintage - were bottled significantly later than the estate norm. (As always, Muller wines from his monopole Braune Kupp are bottled under the Le Gallais label.) Importer: Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY (212) 355 0700

Very mineral scented nose but not that expressive. Pretty dry with lots of grainy fruit. A bit light – not as fine as I remember the 2007 from my Vinitaly tasting – but serviceable. (JR)