Busch’s generic 2007 Riesling Kabinett trocken (previously reviewed in issue 178) – like all of his wines, sourced form steep slate slopes in Pundericher – offers a penetrating nose of fresh apple, lemon zest, buckwheat, toasted nuts, salt spray, and pungent herbs. In a fashion typically for his wines, an impressive sense of stuffing, sap, subtle creaminess, and richness (at 12% alcohol) informs the palate, yet there is grace, refinement, and delicacy in this Riesling’s interplay of stony, nutty, and saline mineral elements with bright citrus and sappy orchard fruit, leading to a finish of tactile mineral intensity and that provokes both thought and further thirst. Enjoy this over the coming year. 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