The Schonleber 2010 Monzinger Halenberg Riesling R – a barely off-dry interpretation of this great site and normally slated for extended elevage – had already been bottled for more than four months when I tasted it in September, because the Schonlebers had determined that a portion of its already smaller-than-usual volume would make an ideal addition to the final blend for the Grosses Gewachs; and they did not want to disturb the remaining R by racking it into a tank of yet smaller capacity, especially given that cask maturation is part of the point of this wine. Whether or not on account of its modest – legally halbtrocken – residual sugar, it soars from the glass in an aromatic profusion that surpasses any of its dry-tasting siblings of the vintage. Musky, heady floral perfume; nut oils; diverse red berries, grapefruit and white peach all vie for attention, then launch taste-able proxies on a palate of satiny texture, flattering glyceral-richness, yet at the same time exhilarating buoyancy. (As with residual sugar, only a small increment of alcohol separates this wine from its trocken counterparts, and there is no way of telling whether that is, in itself, a prime factor conducing to relative levity.) An underlying sense of wet stone sets off the fruit, and this finishes with impressive length if less sheer energy than exhibited by the corresponding Grosses Gewachs. Look for at least 12-15 years of fascination and delight. (The 2009 “R,” incidentally, lives up in bottle to the upper bound of my Issue 198 projection; and the more buoyant, vivacious, no less profound 2008 impresses me now even more than it did when tasted just after bottling and reported on in Issue 187. It was Werner Schonleber’s plan for his “R” bottling from its inception that it should always need a few years in bottle to show its true meddle.) ”Look, the acid levels were almost this high in 1994 – though with much higher yields,” relates Werner Schonleber of 2010, “and yet 1994 was probably my most individual year of the 1990s,” a judgment in which, incidentally, I concur. Musts of extremely high acidity (a couple had pHs under 3.0) were de-acidified – “very cautiously,” notes Frank Schonleber, “l(fā)eaving plenty of leeway in case one or the other went into malo,” which several Riesling lots spontaneously followed the lead of the estate’s Pinots in doing. Despite high levels of potassium (not to mention, of course, tartaric acid) and a cold winter, there was relatively little precipitation of tartrates at this address. Early picking of the Schonlebers’ Auf der Lay parcel, already with significant botrytis, militated against there being an “A.de.L” bottling this year such as had been essayed – exclusively in magnum – in the two preceding vintages. This is really a year, chez Schonlebers, for Fruhlingsplatzchen as a site to shine, though neither they nor I can offer a hypothesis. Regarding the gap or jump in this year’s line-up from “regular” (though in fact, fantastic) Auslesen to Eiswein, Werner Schonleber commented that given the quality and the paucity of fruit available, “Attempts to segregate a gold capsule Auslese were going to make for (“regular”)Auslese in which something was missing. And we scarcely thought ourselves capable of a Beerenauslese this vintage; the attempt wouldn’t have gone well. We had lovely botrytis, but by no means such concentrated berries.”Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644; also imported by Dee Vine Wines, San Francisco, CA tel. (877) 389- 9463