The Rumpf 2006 Munsterer Pittersberg Riesling Auslese is another one picked “right off the vine” (unselected). Apricot and brown spices, black currant and fresh lime set your mouth up for a succulent, lusciously juicy, and not at all obviously botrytized mouthful of berries and pit fruits drenched in lime and honey. Clear, refined, and elegant, with a hint of creaminess, this finishes with vivid, lime-laced cassis and apricot underlain by nut oils and lip-smacking salinity. And you read somewhere that 2006 is the year of over-the-top, flaccid Riesling that self-indulgently forgot its mission? This proof to the contrary should be worth uncorking anytime in the next 20 years. Stefan Rumpf’s collections may still – as I wrote of it previously – be “sprawling ... at times hit and miss.” But his aim becomes ever more accurate. (Son Johannes is now intimately involved.) This year, the Rumpfs decided to take advantage of their enhanced acreage of a variety that they would probably have given up on ten years ago had it not been for their importer, and bottle a dry Scheurebe. The timing was perfect, because not only did this estate make some of the only noteworthy Scheurebe of the vintage, but in the Pfalz – even when growers are not challenged as they were in 2006 – Scheurebe is more and more getting marginalized as a “supplemental variety,” destined solely for some of that region’s rare wine of residual sweetness.Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300