As usual, having been based on an especially high must weight and finished legally halbtrocken, Busch’s 2011 Pundericher Marienburg Falkenlay Riesling features some of the smoky, toasty nut-oil character that accrues to so many of its stable mates. Pear and peach are prominently marked by the piquancy of their pit and pip, which serve for counterpoint to the lushness and faint oiliness of texture as well as lusciousness of ripe fruit on display. An alkaline, fusil aura hangs over this performance, and it finishes with an emphasis on pith and piquancy, yet with admirable primary juiciness and preservation of nuance, even allowing for a faint hint of warmth. This ought to be well worth following for at least 3-4 years and quite possibly considerably longer. For its aggregate of quality and quantity, insists Clemens Busch, 2011 was about as good as he’s ever gotten, even allowing for crop lost to downy mildew, to the late August hail storm, and to the consequent need to eliminate some early, negative botrytis. But he readily admits that the thin-skinned berries wouldn’t have held out more than a few additional days if the September rains hadn’t stopped. While a bit of wine was harvested already in the first days of October, he reports that the weather turned so warm he declared a week-long moratorium on picking. That, he says, was the second existentially critical point in this vintage’s history, because had the October heat continued, it, too, would have spoiled success. That there was considerable botrytis is testified to by this year’s range of ennoble bottlings – largely late-picked, and even those gold capsule designated approaching 200 liters each – and is probably connected with Busch’s organic and biodynamic vineyard regimen. For whatever reason, notes Busch, botrytis-affected musts this year seldom exhibited enhanced acidity; and that proved, to my palate, a handicap for some of them. Picking continued until November 20, which is about as late as any German grower was still at it in 2011. Passive lees contact, Busch opines, was key to providing needed structure and flavor definition to wines from this vintage’s high-sugar, relatively low-acid musts from thin-skinned berries, and I can only add that it almost surely helped in buffering the several bottlings that strayed into 14% alcohol territory. Most of the Busch 2011s were not bottled before mid-summer, and high-sugar musts were still fermenting or had only just ceased fermenting last September and were not to be bottled until after the harvest or possibly even after the new year, so that among dry-tasting single vineyard wines I could not taste Fahrlay-Terrassen, Felsenterrasse or Raffes. (By the same token, I report below on a couple of 2010s that had not yet been amenable to assessment when I reported on the bulk of Busch’s 2010s in issue 199.) Busch has acquired the excellent former local Lenz-Dahm cellar, where his stocks will henceforth be more adequately accommodated than they were in warehouse-like conditions, but vinification will continue to take place at the familiar home venue. As part of the deal, yet more vineyards were acquired, reinforcing what is now Busch’s overwhelming dominance of the Marienburg. As he never tires of pointing out, other growers could have made something of their precious legacy but found the rigor of farming such steep, terraced sites – effectively accessible from the village only by boat – too onerous; and sold-out to him over the years. Both Busch sons have become increasingly involved in their parents’ labors in recent years, the elder having focused on the evolution of the estate’s biodynamic regimen, and currently embarked on an extended work-residence in France.Imported by Louis/Dressner Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 334-8191