Picked out from the harvest of the corresponding “two star” Auslese, Schonleber’s 2006 Monzinger Fruhlingsplatzchen Riesling Beerenauslese Gold Capsule also reflects remarkably refined, rarified, and perfectly ennobled material. Red currant and red raspberry preserves, and grapefruit are allied with honey, caramel, but also musky meaty, faintly stale bread, decadent and exotic manifestations of botrytis, which bring to mind the great wines of 1971. This glides across the palate like a hovercraft skimming a slick of honey, and takes wafting flight that will take your breath away. You could spend hours savoring and reflecting on the mystery that something like this can come from grapes (and fungus), or someone (or ones) could spend the next 50 years doing their best to keep hands off.“The Nahe had the capability to render really good dry wines this year,” asserts Werner Schonleber. “Elsewhere, the botrytis was problematic, or the ripening took place too quickly. But we caught the whole spectrum here.” He proceeded to prove this memorably in the glass, with the finest collection I have ever tasted at this address (as well as – improbably – one in which Fruhlingsplatzchen outperformed Halenberg).Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608-9644; also imported by Dee Vine Wines, San Francisco, CA; tel. (877) 389-9463