The very slight hint of sweetness in Schonborn's 2008 Hattenheimer Pfaffenberg Riesling Kabinett feinherb - formerly labeled -halbtrocken- - nicely supports its tropical fruit, peach, and toasted nut elements, with pungency of grapefruit rind; faint bitterness of peach kernel; and oceanic alkalinity and salinity all offering counterpoint. This amazing value beautifully illustrates the potential for delicacy, transparency, interactive complexity, and for a combination of soothing and stimulation this vintage. Enjoy it over at least the next decade. In my experience, when the balance is this close to perfect already, little can go wrong with a subtly off-dry Riesling from one of Hattenheim's top sites. 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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