Officially – in tiny print – still a Kabinett, the Fritz Haag 2011 Brauneberger Juffer Riesling feinherb represents – as Oliver Haag acknowledges – a wine with enormous versatility at table, that one can drink day or night, in the sun or in the shade. So why kill its ilk off as so many VDP estates are doing? There is a palpable sense of extract here such as one seldom encounters in wines of its vintage, yet combined with a delightful sense of levity. Silken in texture and lusciously stuffed with fresh apple, white peach and honeydew melon, this benefits from licorice, peach kernel, and wet stone for a sense of counterpoint to its sheer, effusive fruitiness. Impeccable residual sugar enhances the fruit while in no way precluding a sense of focus and transparency to herbal and mineral nuances. Look for this to satisfy for at least 12-15 years and quite possibly longer. “We started picking at the beginning of October,” relates Oliver Haag “because must weights were already high for Kabinett, but there was good acidity.” Haag pressed whole clusters rather than either crushing or permitting skin contact for his dry wines, and tended to favor a higher percentage of stainless steel for vinification and elevage because, as he puts it, “the material was all so ripe that I was worried it would come off as too opulent and voluminous.” Without question, he thereby puts his finger on a legitimate concern, and his own wines illustrate the truth that higher alcoholic volume and opulence – no matter what appears on the Riesling’s label – aren’t necessarily virtues, and in particular not in the context of this vintage. “To convey a sense of levity this year,” notes Haag, “was not so easy. Not that there was much botrytis out there,” he adds, though fortunately that fact did not deter him from rendering several spectacular ennobled wines in small volumes.Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. (800) 596-9463