The Busch “two-star” 2007 Riesling Spatlese trocken – from a blue slate portion of the Marienburg – is labeled generically solely for marketing reasons, and as it turns out given the wine’s quality, rather misleadingly. A greenhouse-like profusion of elusive floral, leafy aromas, and damp humus mingles with milled grain, yeast, maraschino, and toasted pistachio in the nose. On the palate, this offers a remarkable amalgam of nutty, creamy richness with real grip and a tactile sense of stony, crystalline minerality. I kept returning to this uncanny, intriguing, and sensually satisfying little masterpiece again and again in the course of my tasting session with Busch, to make sure it really was as I recalled! I would make hast to purchase and enjoy some of this, but can imagine it being worth following for 4-5 more years as well. Clemens Busch – among the Mosel’s few organic vintners, and the undisputed champion of the Lower Mosel’s steep Pundericher Marienburg – is also rapidly demonstrating that he is simply one of the collective Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer’s exceptional talents, not to mention stylistically free spirits. Most of his top wines are labeled with their old pre-1971 site names. Nature thrust on him in 2006 an unprecedented 9 Auslesen (many distinguished only by number), 3 Beerenauslesen, and single T.B.A. (most of which were reviewed in issue 179). In 2007, an at least slightly more normal – not to mention more marketable – balance of dry-tasting (though not always legally trocken) wines was restored, but success, Busch insists, was possible only by dint of great patience and then, when the time was ripe for picking, in great haste. A considerable number of overtly nobly sweet wine was picked in the process, as there was no lack of botrytis in this fungicide-free zone.Mosel Wine Merchant selections (various importers), Trier, Gemany; fax 011 49 (0)651-14551 39; also imported by by Ewald Moseler Selections, Portland OR tel. 888 274 4312