2011 Monzinger Halenberg Grosses Gewachs

The Schonlebers’ 2011 Monzinger Halenberg Riesling Grosses Gewachs delivers a complex nose featuring alkaline, saline, stony, and faintly fusil mineral intimations along with green tea, citrus zests, greenhouse-like suggestions of foliage, and bittersweet, iris-like floral perfume. All of these elements – the perfume as if chomping on flowers – inform a rich, enveloping palate that nonetheless harbors a sense of tension and dynamic not detected in the more static corresponding Fruhlingsplatzchen. I suspect this will retain interest for considerably longer, but probably be best enjoyed within 10-12 years. Veteran Werner Schonleber stresses the role played in 2011’s high quality by tiny drought-impacted berries as well as, naturally, the growing season’s early start; generally cool nighttime temperatures; and five weeks of ideal weather from mid-September on. That small berry size obviated any green harvest, but there was a substantial “pre-harvest” of Riesling – destined largely for generic bottlings – from September 26, with the two Pinots being picked immediately thereafter. The main harvest for Riesling commenced October 3, lasting for two weeks. Like many estates, botrytis arrived here directly on the heels of the heavy rain that fell around September 10-12, but dried to ideal purity and fineness to serve for ennobling concentration without overtly fungal character or less desirable concurrent infections. Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644; also imported by Dee Vine Wines, San Francisco, CA tel. (877) 389- 9463