2007 Riesling Saering

Like this year's Belzbrunnen bottling - and unlike their 2005 vintage counterparts - Dirler's 2007 Riesling Saering is truly dry. A delightful combination of fresh ginger, lime, grapefruit, chalk dust and salt runs from aroma to finish, emphasizing the rather Muscat-like tendencies that occasionally accrue to Riesling of its vintage, and delivering a combination of density, subtle oiliness, and refreshment (at 13% alcohol, incidentally), invigoration and grip that auger well for 15 or more years of very active life. Jean-Pierre Dirler was another of those growers to express delight at the 2007 vintage with its wide window of harvest opportunities, but to have sold off or declassified much of his family's production in 2006. It bears repeating that this estate's international profile is not nearly as high as is the quality of wine that have issued from it routinely since at least the mid-1980s, when I first visited here. I did not, unfortunately, have chance to taste quite the entire 2007 Dirler-Cade collection, and canvassed only a small selection of their in any event diminished number of 2006s. Importer: Robert Chadderdon Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 757-8185