Yeasty fermentative notes on the nose of Weis’s 2008 Ockfener Bockstein Riesling Kabinett reluctantly recede to reveal site-typical orange blossom and apple. This is certainly a genuinely light-weight Kabinett, with both efficacious acidity and bitter hints of fruit pit and apple pip balancing its residual sugar in an invigorating dynamic. Assuming the reductive funkiness clears off, it should prove delightful for more than a decade. Sankt Urbans-Hof, notes proprietor Nik Weis, experienced a good ten degrees Oechsle difference in 2008 between its ripest Saar fruit – bottled as Spatlese – and that of the Mosel, which reached Auslese level even without stringent selection of botrytis fruit. “We find this a terrific vintage,” remarks Weis – who compares its style with 1998 – “inasmuch as at long last we again have the clear differentiation between Kabinett as it should be, Spatlese, and ennobled Auslese.” Remarkably, there is only a single trocken bottling here this year (from Mehring) which I did not taste and which was destined for the Landhaus Sankt Urban restaurant of Weis’s sister and brother-in-law.Importer: H. B. Wine Merchants, New York, NY; tel. (917)-402-0456

Tingling fresh as a cool mountain stream but with minerality and hints of lychees on the nose.

This is a zippy little number, with scents of white cherries and citrus that float over a bed of petroleum and fresia. The crisp, off-dry finish winds down to a lingering grapefruit note. Drink now with cod in a miso sauce or stash away for a few years. ——W.E.(6/1/2010)—— 88