As is so often the case, the Breuer 2011 Riesling Terra Montosa displays a more gripping sense of phenolics than some of its ostensibly lesser siblings in the present collection, yet it preserves an underlying sense of textural polish. This bottling from the Rudesheimer Berg and Rauenthaler Nonnenberg is dominated by peach, mirabelle and citrus oils accented by pit piquancy. Intimations of nut oils help integrate the bitter elements in an impressively sustained if marginally austere finish. Look for distinguished, if perhaps somewhat aloof, performances through at least 2017. The Breuer family has bottled a host of formidable collections over the decades, but I must say that Theresa Breuer and her team have very lately been on a roll. When I visited her in the third week of September, 2011, the Riesling harvest was already in full swing even as it rained intermittently. Thankfully, that rain soon stopped definitively, and in the end the Breuer Riesling harvest was not entirely finished until almost a month later. Relatively early picking, though, has typified this estate ever since I began visiting it in the mid-1980s, and young Theresa Breuer was quite confident that her viticulture regimen in 2011 would guarantee longtime cellarmaster Hermann Schmoranz fruit of more than sufficient ripeness and health, a confidence that the results in bottle more than bear out. “Yes we picked earlier, but,” she points out, “the entire season was early. Then it cooled off; we didn’t have to select nearly as laboriously as we had anticipated, and the wines have kept a certain freshness precisely because we started earlier.” That’s hardly the half of it: these wines’ remarkable levity by contemporary dry German Riesling standards – not to mention the standards of recent Rudesheimer Berg wines or the vintage – is coupled with ravishing complexity and vintage-typical sheer generosity. And that last trait is not one I usually associate with youthful Breuer crus. Virtually all of the 2011fruit was pressed directly to enhance clarity and vivacity; only that from Rauenthal plus a very few Rudesheim lots having received brief pre-fermentative skin contact. Imported by Classical Wines, Seattle, WA; tel. (206) 547-0255

Shows lively intensity to the slate, dried apple and fennel flavors, with plenty of lushness. Features juicy acidity, displaying a seductive creaminess that extends onto the finish, which offers plum tart and spice. Drink now through 2016. 1,300 cases made.??–KM??Region: Germany / Rheingau Select to Add