Carl von Schubert insists his 2009 Maximin Grunhaus Riesling Herrenberg Spatlese feinherb represents a bottling warranted only on this occasion due to the fine performance of a single fuder. It illustrates both the distinctiveness of its site and a perfect integration of residual sugar that's supportive yet not really taste-able as such. Less rich, to be sure, than the corresponding "Superior" bottling, this displays a exemplary buoyancy, vivacity, and transparency to peat, salt, crushed stone, as well as bittersweet floral nuances. White currant and honeydew melon supply a sense of both invigoratingly tart and coolingly luscious fruit without generating any sense of disharmony. Expect this to perform admirably over the next 12-15 years. Proprietor Carl von Schubert and cellarmaster and vineyard manager Stefan Kraml continue to make strides in bringing this great estate back to its long-standing exemplary form, albeit incorporating some stylistic innovations (for more about which consult in particular my reports in issues 183 and 187). "We picked from between the 18th of October and the 6th of November," reports von Schubert, "and although there was intermittent rain, the weather only really turned worse after we had finished." He points out that photographs from earlier eras at Grunhaus routinely show vines entirely denuded of foliage by the time they were harvested, just the way they looked this year, and while the early October frost aggravated him at the time, he did not think in retrospect that it had any negative repercussions. One probable effect of those barren branches was relative paucity of botrytis, and von Schubert opined that only at the level of his fuder-numbered Auslesen – and then only by dint of extreme selectivity of bunches and partial bunches – did noble rot become a significant factor. A third fuder-numbered Auslese – other than the two canvassed in the present report – represents, in Carl von Schubert's words, "the attempt to vinify a distinctly botrytized and rigorously selected Auslese in barrique" and will only be bottled and presented for tasting next year. It's degree of sweetness? "Only a bit more than the 'Superior,'" he says! There is also a Beerenauslese and a Trockenbeerenauslese which had not been bottled and which von Schubert was similarly not eager to show yet when I visited in September. Other than for nobly sweet wines, fermentations here are normally finished by the end of December and this year, says von Schubert, was no exception; even while relying entirely on ambient yeasts he had more than enough casks go to legal dryness to satisfy his needs, some even ending up as few as two grams residual sugar and as high as 13.5% in alcohol (although these were blended-out with other, lighter lots). In each instance where I was made aware of multiple bottlings which required reference to an A.P. # in order to disambiguate, note that I tasted only one of those bottlings. Incidentally, a new fuder-vinified 2009 "Schloss Grunhaus" Pinot Blanc struck me as too-dominated by wood, and its 13% alcohol precluded much sense of levity or refreshment. Importer: P. J. Valckenberg International, Tulsa, OK; tel. (918) 622-0424
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