Loewen’s 2010 Leiwener Klostergarten Riesling Kabinett is scented and juicily filled with musk melon, pumpkin, pear, lime, and grapefruit, accented with sage, toasted almond and salt. There is a faintly but not discordantly lactic note here and otherwise a refreshing slightly tart sense of citricity. Sweetness, too, manages to be well-integrated rather than engendering any sense of bifurcation. This might not be the most charming example of its genre but is certainly full of energy and interest, and apt to be well worth utilizing over the next half dozen or more years. “Nobody knew what to do” in the fall of 2010, maintains Karl-Josef Loewen, “because nobody had every witnessed anything like such a vintage.” He took all but a few of his musts down by one and a half grams of acid using calcium carbonate, which still left them plenty high. “I suspect that if you analyze my wines this year – just as with many classic Mosel Rieslings of a bygone era – you’ll find that some harbor a bit of lactic acid; but I did nothing to encourage malo and none of my wines experienced any profound malo-lactic transformation. What’s more, given the low acidity we are expecting in 2011, I would not want to be one of those growers who invited malo-lactic bacteria to have the run of my cellar. But this much is certain,” he adds: “if you had green, under-ripe aromas in the must this year, then you were never going to get rid of them by any means.” Loewen tends to welcome botrytis, and I can’t help wondering whether that has proven the Achilles heel for some of his drier 2010s, for which berries are generally crushed (this year at times foot-trodden) and given up to 12 hours of skin contact before pressing, techniques that, he acknowledges, should generally presuppose essentially healthy fruit.Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300