Although the von Schonborn estate began this year's harvest in Hochheim, a 2008 Hochheimer Domdechaney Riesling Kabinett trocken is informed by fruit picked relatively late from that site, well after the harvesting of the corresponding Grosses Gewachs. Ocean breeze-like alkaline, briny notes and a Chablis-like suggestion of chicken stock overlay lemon and white peach in the nose, corresponding on the palate to a shimmering sense of fruit and mineral interplay. This combines seemingly palpably high extract with delicacy and refreshment, and finishes with admirable vivacity and intensity. You-d never guess it to be carrying 12.5% alcohol. Where the dry Kabinett from Hochheim's Kirchenstuck was so winsome in 2007, this Domdechaney is the wine to seek out in its style from 2008, and to enjoy over the next half dozen or more years. What's more, it offers excellent value. 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