Weingut Max Ferd. Richter Mulheimer Sonnenlay Riesling Kabinett Feinherb, Mosel, Germany

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Richter’s 2007 Muhlheimer Sonnenlay Riesling Kabinett feinherb smells of sassafras, lemon, and smoke in a rather Erdener Treppchen-like way (and the soils are quite similar). This beautifully combines creamy richness of texture with bright refreshment and delicacy in an archetypal 2007 manner. Grapefruit, pineapple, and Persian melon are tinged with smoke, bitter-sweet herbal concentrates, nut oils, peach kernel, and citrus zest, leading to a long, lip-smacking finish shimmering displaying what I can only call crystalline minerality. With uncanny balance, the 23 grams of residual sugar here are scarcely noticeable. This terrific value will prove multi-talented at table over the next 7-9 years. Dirk Richter is an historian of the Mosel as well as one of the region’s foremost growers, and he claims that on five occasions in the eleven years between and including the epochal vintages of 1911 and 1921, flowering on the Mosel took place in May ... but then not again until 2007. He started picking already in early October, but only as a means of thinning (“pre-harvesting”) his Brauneberg vineyards, and the resultant Kabinett is rather green in flavor. Harvest did not begin in earnest here until mid-October, and save for the two T.B.A.s that he painstakingly collected, Richter insists there was scarcely any botrytis. Interesting, the yields from Richter’s Wehlener Sonnenuhr vineyards – his only remaining ungrafted vines – were the highest this year that he has ever experienced, and the wines are by no means disappointing (although Auslese was not possible). The grip exhibited by his dry-tasting wines may in part come from the skin contact Richter gives most of them, in part to buffer their acids. Still, as he puts it, “with the intense minerality, strong acidity, and very low pH of Mosel Riesling, some residual sugar is needed. And here, with feinherb-as-trocken, that need is borne out quite clearly, and the wine tastes dry, and people drink it as ‘dry’.” What’s more, lower alcohol helps these “dry” Riesling dance. If feinherb (often as high here as 25 grams in residual sugar) works on Richter’s German customers, halleluiah! For anybody else, these feinherb Kabinetts should be no-brainers, especially at his prices. Richer shares my enthusiasm for the undeservedly obscure and misunderstood Pinot Blanc (a.k.a. Wiesser Burgunder), and is in process of doubling his acreage and planning to produce some Sekt from it as wellImporter: Langdon-Shiverick Cleveland,?OH; tel. (216) 861-6800