A portion of Deinhard’s 2008 Deidesheimer Grainhubel Riesling trocken – representing the estate’s ripest vineyard (the so-called Grain of the Grainhubel) and earliest picking – was vinified in small barrels, and the entirety received extended skin contact. The results – among many here to be bottled under the Von Winning label – are singular, and not to be confused with a Grainhubel Spatlese trocken also reviewed here and bottled under the Dr. Deinhard label. Smoky, malted, pungently herbal and oceanic aromas put me in mind of Scotch whisky, with corn mash suggesting brown spirits of another continent. Sweet corn, pungent smokiness, tactile crushed stone, and briny minerality combine on a full, glycerin-rich palate for an impressive show, finishing with a dominant salinity but also a faint sense of drying, presumably from its contact with wood. It will be fascinating to witness how this evolves, but I’m not giving odds. For general updates on the change of ownership and radical recent developments at this venerable estate, I refer readers to my report in issue 185. The official winery name is now Von Winning and the Dr. Deinhard label will be used only for selected wines, not including any of the ostensibly top dry bottlings. I have conjoined the names, and continued to use Dr. Deinhard as a shorthand, because that is still how this winery is routinely referred to (even inside Germany), and readers should simply be on the lookout for either of these names on a label as an indication that it came from the winery in question (and, what’s more, is worth tasting). Young wine-geek-as-director Stefan Attmann – another of the many protegees of Hans-Gunter Schwarz, whose friend Joachim Niederberger now owns the winery – is attacking his work here with frenetic passion, but you have only to taste the latest crop of wines to recognize what discipline and determination he and his vineyard manager Joachim Jaillet (with whom I toured their sites) also bring to their jobs. Aspects of vinification worth bearing in mind are skin contact; near-absence of sedimentation; largely spontaneous fermentation; absence of fining; and filtration only immediately before bottling. (Common practice with German Riesling is still to filter at least twice.) “No risk, no fun,” is among Attmann’s mottos, though as he pointed out, the low pHs and cool weather of 2008 improved one’s odds. The U.S. importer, incidentally, offered last year a much extended range of 2007s, so that with two exceptions the stateside prices for wines of the 2008 vintage have not been set, although many can be expected to arrive here in the course of 2010. Precisely which wines of Deinhard will in future be bottled as Grosses Gewachs remains up in the air. The winery is promoting several individual parcels – i.e. not official post 1971 Einzellagen – for this status.Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300