Emanating from the Hallgartener Schonhell, Kuhns two barriques worth of 2009 Spatburgunder trocken Kreuz display meat broth; ripe, tart-edged purple plum and black currant, along with saline and chalky mineral dimensions in a polished, persistent performance capped by a hint of caramel. This has impressive potential headed into bottle, though I suspect it will be one to enjoy within the next 5-7 years. (The corresponding regular bottling displayed considerably less vivacity or complexity.) 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