2010 Monzinger Fruhlingsplatzchen Grosses Gewachs

Smells quite late picked. But then there is an amazing amount of acidity on the palate. Really quite sour. Odd wine without harmony between nose and palate. Pretty mouth-puckering finish. (JR)

Pale greenish straw. Intense nose. Very sleek and well balanced. Bone dry with some interesting mineral elements. Very cool and restrained at the moment. Much more than a year behind the 2009s. (JR)

Schonlebers’ 2010 Monzinger Fruhlingsplatzchen Riesling Grosses Gewachs mingles scents and flavors of raspberry and grapefruit, toasted nuts, green tea, cress and wintergreen. Rich and satin-textured, its emerging savory, broth-like sense of mineral, marrow, and herbal concentration makes for a palate of depth and downright mystery. Animated and elegant; refreshing and invigorating; thought-provoking and entertaining, this superb Riesling projects an uncanny sense of transparency of one flavor to another in a kaleidoscopic performance that should prove riveting for the next dozen, perhaps more, years. ”Look, the acid levels were almost this high in 1994 – though with much higher yields,” relates Werner Schonleber of 2010, “and yet 1994 was probably my most individual year of the 1990s,” a judgment in which, incidentally, I concur. Musts of extremely high acidity (a couple had pHs under 3.0) were de-acidified – “very cautiously,” notes Frank Schonleber, “leaving plenty of leeway in case one or the other went into malo,” which several Riesling lots spontaneously followed the lead of the estate’s Pinots in doing. Despite high levels of potassium (not to mention, of course, tartaric acid) and a cold winter, there was relatively little precipitation of tartrates at this address. Early picking of the Schonlebers’ Auf der Lay parcel, already with significant botrytis, militated against there being an “A.de.L” bottling this year such as had been essayed – exclusively in magnum – in the two preceding vintages. This is really a year, chez Schonlebers, for Fruhlingsplatzchen as a site to shine, though neither they nor I can offer a hypothesis. Regarding the gap or jump in this year’s line-up from “regular” (though in fact, fantastic) Auslesen to Eiswein, Werner Schonleber commented that given the quality and the paucity of fruit available, “Attempts to segregate a gold capsule Auslese were going to make for (“regular”)Auslese in which something was missing. And we scarcely thought ourselves capable of a Beerenauslese this vintage; the attempt wouldn’t have gone well. We had lovely botrytis, but by no means such concentrated berries.” Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644; also imported by Dee Vine Wines, San Francisco, CA tel. (877) 389- 9463