Bottled only at ten months, and only coming to market later this year, the 2007 Riesling Schlossberg is surprisingly fusil in aroma and suffused throughout with bittersweet herbal and citrus oil character. Tart bitterness of huckleberry as well as a sense of crushed stone add to a somewhat austere but impressively and intensely persistent finishing impression. I can see the overall personality of this wine (which, incidentally, I sampled from a cork-closed bottle) as exemplifying the Blancks’ insistence that their wines – and especially 2007 vintage Rieslings – need time. That noted, I usually associate fusil elements with maturation, as well as with chalky rather than granitic soils. Frederic and Philippe Blanck are among the wine world’s – hardly just Alsace’s or France’s – truly late-releasers, and Philippe opines that their 2007s – which he compares with the 2001s – will need especially long to show their best. That noted, I found the wines highly expressive at age one year, and the domaine did a more than credible job of 2006, too. Perhaps a bit paradoxically in light of their pleas for cellar maturation, the Blancks are moving increasingly toward the use of screwcap closure, and Philippe Blanck says that when he goes back and tastes the first wines he bottled this way – from vintages 2001 and 2002 – he is delighted with their evolution, or perhaps, in fact, their freshness and relative lack of evolution. (For an isolated comparison under cork and screwcap, see my tasting note on the Blancks’ 2006 Schlossberg Riesling.) This is one of several addresses where a tendency to revert to drier bottlings can be observed, for more about which consult my tasting notes on the Blancks’ 2007 Pinot Gris and on their 2006 and 2007 Gewurztraminer crus. Note that I was not able to taste the entire Blanck line-up from either of the vintages under consideration. In particular, there were two 2007 V.T.s I missed through an unfortunate accident in which dozens of fruit flies met their end inside the previously opened bottles before they reached me!Imported by: Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300 and by The Stacole Company, Boca Raton, FL; tel. (561) 998 0029

The 2006 Riesling Schlossberg is scented with borderline over-ripe peach, mirabelle distillate, mothball, orange oil, ginger, and a vintage-typical hint of mushroom or truffle that one normally attributes to incipient botrytis. High glycerin and a honeyed cast on the palate also point toward the wine’s botrytis component, yet this remains fresh as well as distinctively fusil and spicy in its finish, with that faint hint of sweetness common to many Blanck Rieslings well-integrated and not so evident that one can’t call this a “dry” wine. This same wine from a screwcapped bottle tasted more citric and fresher, less fusil, but less generous. Most interestingly, though, what had been a fungal hint became rather obvious notes of raw mushroom. My score for this screwcapped bottling – bearing in mind, of course, that these were simply two isolated bottles, whose performance I did not compare against even a second bottle – would be a point below the one I have published here. Frederic and Philippe Blanck are among the wine world’s – hardly just Alsace’s or France’s – truly late-releasers, and Philippe opines that their 2007s – which he compares with the 2001s – will need especially long to show their best. That noted, I found the wines highly expressive at age one year, and the domaine did a more than credible job of 2006, too. Perhaps a bit paradoxically in light of their pleas for cellar maturation, the Blancks are moving increasingly toward the use of screwcap closure, and Philippe Blanck says that when he goes back and tastes the first wines he bottled this way – from vintages 2001 and 2002 – he is delighted with their evolution, or perhaps, in fact, their freshness and relative lack of evolution. (For an isolated comparison under cork and screwcap, see my tasting note on the Blancks’ 2006 Schlossberg Riesling.) This is one of several addresses where a tendency to revert to drier bottlings can be observed, for more about which consult my tasting notes on the Blancks’ 2007 Pinot Gris and on their 2006 and 2007 Gewurztraminer crus. Note that I was not able to taste the entire Blanck line-up from either of the vintages under consideration. In particular, there were two 2007 V.T.s I missed through an unfortunate accident in which dozens of fruit flies met their end inside the previously opened bottles before they reached me!Imported by: Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300 and by The Stacole Company, Boca Raton, FL; tel. (561) 998 0029