The 2007 Riesling Heiligenstein – which was bottled shortly before the 2008 harvest – offers alluring floral perfume (buddleia, honeysuckle) typical for this site. It displays surprising lift, refinement, and delicacy (at 12.3% alcohol) when one considers both the wine’s glossy creamy texture and its sheer concentration of flavors, here including peach, melon, grapefruit, herbs, and persistent flowers. This finishes with ravishing generosity of luscious fruit supported by barely noticeable (16 grams) residual sugar, and accompanied by refined if ineffable touches of minerality. Johannes Hirsch was already done harvesting in 2007 on October 8 (after starting September 13), not far behind the Nikolaihof. And there is another connection with that venerable estate which may or may not be vital: Hirsch has been passionately pursuing a biodynamic path. I did manage to get a smile out of him when I suggested that he consider replacing the pile of cow horns he had accumulated with much rarer and surely more efficacious antlers of elk (Hirsch). “The clusters were beautifully golden-yellow, perfect,” he relates, so there was no need to wait, which meant missing out on the mid-October rains.Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300