Intriguingly saline, marine and crustacean notes rise from the glass of Schonleber 2008 Monzinger Halenberg Riesling Grosses Gewachs and continue throughout. Chablis-like chicken stock and shellfish reduction combine with red currant, sour cherry, lime, and grapefruit on a tart yet luscious, glossily-textured yet refreshing palate The superbly satisfying and stimulating finish offers a dynamic exchange between the wine’s saline, animal savor and its bright citrus, accompanied by suggestions of nut oils and hints of fruit pit bitterness. This energetic and multi-dimensional Halenberg should be worth following for more than a decade. Werner and Frank Schonleber are another Nahe dream team whose amazing performance in 2007 has been equaled in 2008. “I wouldn’t call it a vintage with the emphasis on fruit,” says Werner Schonleber, “but rather on a pronounced, saline minerality. And there was no great selection of nobly sweet wine this year, because every three or four days it would rain at least a little bit.” He offers as “a very simple explanation” of this pronounced minerality the classic one adduced by growers (whether or not scientifically supportable) that the vines better “assimilate mineral stuff” when mild weather and plenty of moisture grease – as it were – the wheels of plant metabolism. And such vintages always boast measurably high levels of dry extract; the question remains, has that – as most growers believe – anything to do with their expression of flavors for which we feel compelled to employ mineral vocabulary?Importers: Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608-9644; Dee Vine Wines, San Francisco, CA tel. (877) 389-9463