Like peach close to the pit, the Kuhn 2009 Riesling trocken Landgeflecht combines juicily ripe fruit with subtle bitterness, tartness, and salinity. Suggestions of walnut and hickory as well as the radish-like alliance of muskiness and bite common to several wines in this collection make for both intrigue and invigoration. Firmer in feel and brighter than the other Kuhn trocken Rieslings of the vintage – though less refined and generously sappy for now than the corresponding Hallgartener – this impressively persistent offering ought to perform well for the better part of a decade. Peter Jakob Kuhn – for more about whose distinctive stylistic and agricultural aspirations consult my several earlier reports – had every reason to express delight in his 2009 collection, “but it didnt require enormous skill to make excellent wine this year,” he added self-effacingly and smilingly. Kuhn noted that he did have to warm the cellar to get a number of his lots to reach the desired degree of dryness. The dry wines as usual here underwent malo, but it was not a very profound transformation given the ripeness (and hence low malic acidity) of raw material; and most of the finished wines display plenty of sap and vivacity despite harboring low measurable acidity. Noting that “If you have to wait for botrytis to come, the berries eventually become sweet but harbor less finesse; early harvest always results in the best nobly sweet wines,” Kuhn suggests that such optimal botrytis harvest was possible to only a very limited extent in 2009 and explains his variable degree of success.Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644; also imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York, NY; tel. (212) 279 0799

A largely unfruity wine, defined by mineral notes of struck flint and crushed stone. Yet at the same time, it’s ripe in weight and mouthcoating in its intensity, hinting at orange oil on the long finish. ——J.C.(12/1/2011)—— 88