An effusively floral, lavender, and musk melon nose greets from the glass of 2008 Rudesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling Erstes Gewachs, then migrates to a palate on which suggestions of banana, malt, and brown spices further reflect the extreme ripeness (but healthiness) of its constituent fruit, picked November 1 from up against one of the Rudesheimer Berg's numerous and at times towering walls. Lemon and pink grapefruit lend lusciously juicy freshness on a plush palate and enhance a sense of finishing levity, as well as set up a long, riveting, reverberative exchange of this citrus with the wine's darker and slightly torrified elements, and with saline, stony notes. At 13.6% this is a tick higher in alcohol even than the 2008, but that is just as little apparent - other than in the wine's sheer amplitude - as was the case with that predecessor. This excitingly energetic and seductively rich Riesling should be worth following for at least 6-8 years, and is a fine tribute both to the team responsible and to the potential of Rudesheim's top sites in this vintage, as well as an exception to the level of alcohol Riesling can comfortably and elegantly carry. There is a Schonborn Berg Rottland Grosses Gewachs, too, but its entire production - as is the case with a surprising number of these elite dry Riesling bottlings - gets sold to a single client, in this case a German retail merchant. An April, 2009 visit to this estate - my first in many years - convinced me of Peter Barth's seriousness and talent, and revealed many wines worthy of the great potential of the vast von Schonborn acreage. Last September, I was thrilled by an even finer collection. The number of separate and vineyard-specific bottlings here (as explained - along with other recent developments at this estate - in issue 185) is nowadays intentionally limited. Additionally, in 2008 Barth adopted a very conservative approach, essaying few nobly sweet wines, and while finding his best fruit from top parcels worthy of Erstes Gewachs bottlings, he did not render parallel Spatlese trocken bottlings from the same sites as in other recent years. -Our late start picking this year, with the first Riesling on October 17,- Barth points out, -would have been considered entirely normal 15 years ago. But honestly, by the time we started, I think more than half of the Rheingau had already been picked, a lot of that wines with green, unripe notes and resulting in wines that were then de-acidified.-Various importers, including Dee Vine Wines San Francisco, CA; tel. (877) 389- 9463, Slocum & Sons, North Haven, CT; tel. (203) 239-8000, Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700
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