2008 Rudesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling

A couple of hundred half-bottles exist of the Breuer 2008 Rudesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling Beerenauslese, which smells of faintly stale bread, kirsch, mirabelle distillate, green tea, citrus oils, and ocean breeze, that last-named marine dimension becoming a striking presence on the wine’s rich, creamy, yet refreshing, buoyant, and far from superficially sweet palate. Pungent, bittersweet candied citrus rind and tea mingle with saline, alkaline, and stony mineral suggestions, pit fruit essences, and bright, fresh citrus in a lusciously lingering finish. This is embryonic nobly sweet Riesling worthy of 25-30 years’ attention. In fact, it’s probably as close as one could come to an austere wine of this genre. But what a remarkable performance stands behind one’s being able to make that claim! At more than 9,000 man hours including the time spent on intensive selection, Heinrich Breuer says this was one of the most labor-intensive and expensive harvests in the estate’s history. “We have 80 parcels in Rudesheim and are very conscientious about checking each one every couple of days to make sure the acidity doesn’t drop too low, to check the must weights, and to deal with any issues that might arise. We were in fact happy to have gotten around a half a gram more acidity at harvest than in the 2007s,” continues Breuer, who says it was really the phenolics and not the quality of acids or levels of sugar that changed while they picked in the course of October. Reports have reached me of the extent to which the top 2008 vintage Rieslings here are said to have became more harmonious and complex in the course of last autumn, so I may well have underestimated them based on my September tastings. But I was already totally disarmed and amazed by the quality of the several best nobly sweet wines, coming as they do from an estate that treats that genre very much as an afterthought (or, more accurately, as a part of pre-harvest provided noble rot is already there) and from a vintage in which so few such wines were essayed nation-wide. Importer: Classical Wines, Seattle WA; tel. (206) 547-0255