The 2007 Kallstadter Saumagen Riesling Kabinett trocken is – predictably – even more typical of Koehler-Rupprecht than its generic counterpart. A site-typical fresh ginger note on the nose mingles with salt spray, high-toned pit fruit essences, and fresh lemon. Brighter, yet more austere on the palate than the generic dry Riesling, this penetrates with salt and chalk. It needs at least another year to strut its stuff, I suspect, but will keep well for close to ten years, I predict. Bernd Philippi has sold Koehler-Rupprecht, but he assures me that “this won’t change anything when it comes to the wines, it’s only about inheritance” and, if anything, he might be committed to devoting a higher percentage of his time to his home winery – in addition to his projects in Madeira, Portugal and South Africa – than he had in recent years. A couple of other thing have clearly changed, though. The estate has absorbed the former Henninger winery – whose wines were long made by Philippi at Koehler-Rupprecht – and future bottlings of Kallstadter Annaberg will appear under the Koehler-Rupprecht label. And, in the U.S., long-time importer Terry Theise and Philippi appear to have definitively parted ways, but no new importer has yet been designated. Due to Philippi’s globe-encircling, multi-harvest schedule, I was unable to taste with him last year, but this year I caught up in a major way. I’ll publish notes on his 2008s early next year. From 2007, I tasted nearly his entire dry line, but am publishing here only my notes on those wines set to be released by 2011 or 2012. His dry Auslese reserve bottlings – including, for the first time, a double-R Auslese – are voluminous but not at all heavy, displaying fascinating mineral notes and strikingly high-toned esters that in typical estate fashion flirt with volatility. But given that Philippi plans to release theses wines only in 2013 or 2014, it serves little purpose and might only mislead to publish notes on the way they show now. These wines all live by their own rules, and it’s true that on occasion volatile aspects can get out of hand, as well as that they can experience awkward – at times downright weird – periods. That said, too much seems to me to have been made of this – at least, when it comes to Riesling – and the quality of wines I tasted from 2007 and 2008 was quite consistently high.