2007 Schloss Gobelsburg Riesling Kammerner Gaisberg

Slate, matchstick – pungent and forthright with an oily texture and limey fruit on the palate. Very appealing, and with some intriguing depth of flavour too. Excellent. (RH)

The Gobelsburg 2007 Riesling Gaisberg is dominated by heady floral perfume and herb- and brown spice-tinged ripe apricot and persimmon, and offers another impressive example of 2007's ability to promote very ripe flavors at moderate (in this case, 12.5%) alcohol. Low-toned flavors suggestive of roasted, faintly caramelized root vegetables well up as this wine opens – another characteristic shared by a number of the more striking Rieslings of this vintage. This almost severely concentrated wine finishes with formidable grip and considerable tactile sizzle of white pepper, lemon zest, and crushed stone. It will be most interesting to see how this develops, but I am sure it will be worth cellaring for at least 5-7 years, and I am also sure that at significantly higher alcohol, its tendency toward bitterness and phenolic bite would have been exaggerated. Michael Moosbrugger did not begin his main white wine harvest – even for lighter-weight Gruner Veltliner – until mid-October. Unlike most Krems area growers he also picked nobly sweet wine, based on a late bloom of botrytis. Moosbrugger seems to have achieved some (considering the weather) surprisingly successful reds in 2007, having painstakingly cut off half of each cluster to inhibit the development of rot, then harvested prior to any of his whites. (I’ll report on those reds after I have re-tasted them from bottle. For notes on two outstanding 2006 vintage reds which have since lived up to their promise in bottle, consult my report in issue 177.) Importer: Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300