2006 Scharzhofberger Spatlese

The Scharzhof’s auction cuvee of 2006 Scharzhofberger Riesling Spatlese A.P. #7 is dominated by musk melon and honey, leading to a soft, silken-textured, seductively sweet and exotically-scented palate – mingling with savory mineral and faintly carnal notes – yet a palate possessed of remarkable delicacy and refinement, an impression enhanced by wafting, lingering musky, sweetly-perfumed suggestions of lily and honeysuckle. Despite the uncanny, levitating delicacy of this performance, a vivid sense of slate stone figures among the myriad, hard-to-capture mineral notes in the score. Instead of “out of the blue,” one says in German (literally) “out of a serene heaven.” That’s whence this Spatlese seems to have dropped into the bottle. It should be a delight over at least the next quarter-century. Despite the challenges of hail (which struck the Scharzhofberg but not the Braune Kupp) and rampant ripening and botrytis, Egon Muller has turned out a 2006 collection whose quality potential he says can be compared (as he did 2005’s) with 1976, the vintage his father believed to have been the finest of his time. “This was a vintage with massive botrytis,” Muller observes, “yet when you taste the wines today, you are amazed at how elegant and refreshing they are.” (Note: stellar quality was achieved in 1976 almost exclusively on the Saar, not in Germany’s other Riesling-growing regions.) Muller also draws comparison between the styles of 2006 and 1999, although the latter vintage involved a great deal of selection and resulted in no fewer than 37 different bottlings. “Surprisingly,” he says, “in 2006 we did very, very little selection. We played around a bit here and there, but we realized very quickly that the must weights were soaring, and haste in the vineyards and the cellar was essential. We did harvest a very small amount of Trockenbeerenauslese – we wanted to do that. But a lot more would have been possible had there been the time.” Importer: Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700