Originating in a parcel of the Krower Steffensberg (next to Wolfer Goldgrube) that Vollenweider says is predestined by its heavier soils and clonal selection for higher yields, his 2006 Riesling Spatlese is loaded with ripe, honey–glazed nectarine fruit, juicy and quite refined and subtly creamy in texture, and admirably delicate, as well as simply sweet and outgoing. Enjoy it over the next several years. (An attractive but very sweet and rather raisin-like generic Auslese resulted simply from the prior harvest that was necessary to cull the Steffensberg of botrytized bunches and make possible a Spatlese.) “We started picking immediately after the October 3rd rain, and then under high pressure,” relates Daniel Vollenweider. Already then, there was little to be harvested below Auslese, not surprising considering the general trends this vintage and the fact that Vollenweider, as a friend to botryits in normal times, never sprays to keep it at bay. But in a departure from the norm, one cask had reached ten grams of residual sugar by the end of last summer and Vollenweider decided he might as well taste what a truly dry Wolfer Goldgrube Spatlese would be like! (I have not connected with the bottled wine.) A second major vineyard reclamation project in the Schimbock – a once-renowed riverside parcel within today’s Trabener Wurzgarten – is where Vollenweider intends to specialize in dry Riesling.Importer: Vineyard Research, Inc., Lunenburg, MA tel. 617 686 8052; Ewald Moseler Selections, Portland OR tel. 888 274 4312; also A Bill Mayer Age of Riesling Selection Imported by Valley View Wine Sales, Glen Ellen, CA; tel. (510) 549-2444