As its price and designation as “great growth” would suggest, the 2004 Monzinger Halenberg Riesling Grosses Gewachs is a step up in concentration of both fruit and minerals, offering salty, briny, and wet stone aromatics, along with scents of peach, peach kernel, distilled raspberry and lemon zest. The middle weight palate offers juicy, bright citrus and salty minerality. The finish however displays faint heat and roughness despite its obvious concentration. What will a few more months in the bottle bring, I wonder? There was not a lot of time or leeway, relates Werner Schonleber, between the onset of complete ripeness and that of negative rot, so once the harvest started in mid October, it was necessary to “give it some gas” and not waste a single dry day. For the most part, there was not sufficient late warmth or sun to steer the botrytis that was present in a noble direction. But the array of clean, rot-free, wines with mineral and fruit concentration this year is certainly formidable, thanks among other factors to the excellent ventilation of these steep sites, the Schonlebers’ careful canopy management, and of course considerable selectivity at harvest.Various importers including: Chapin Cellars – Billington Imports, Springfield, VA; tel. (703) 455-4700 and Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ tel 856-608-9644