The 2008 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Alte Reben Grosses Gewachs (another dry Loosen Riesling recently re-named) originates in very old vines and an especially rocky site (above the site of an old Roman press and adjacent to Pralat). Smoke-, citrus zest-inflected aromas have their counterpart in palate pungency but also a bit of bitterness and faint heat. That said, there is a lot of sap and sheer intensity here, with flavors of sassafras, orange, and apple underlain by a palpable, vivid sense of crushed stone. If I were going to age a Loosen 2008 Grosses Gewachs more than 5-6 years, though, I would place my bets on the corresponding Urziger Wurzgarten. Ernst Loosen insists he aims to observe an upper limit of 12.5% alcohol for his trocken bottlings, a level that one might have expected was easily achievable in 2008; but in fact, a portion of this vintage’s collection comes close to transgressing it. When it comes to residually sweet Kabinett – a genre in which Loosen has long excelled – his frequently-voiced concerns that “the real thing” was becoming almost impossible (or at least, impossibly expensive) to achieve nowadays certainly do not apply to the 2008 vintage, when his collection of Kabinetts is not only superb, but also lively and feather-light. Indeed, the whole 2008 Loosen Oeuvre – while consisting of fewer wines than usual, with its nobly sweet selections even more (and more spectacularly) focused than usual on Pralat – is superb. What’s more, even cellarmaster Bernard Schug voiced his amazement at just how little sweetness most of the residually sweet wines display.Importer: Loosen Brothers, Portland, OR tel. (510) 864-7255