Also recommended, but no tasting note given. To my palate, this years collection at Schloss Johannisberg represented another admirable step toward the revival of vinous greatness at this renowned estate, though I am acutely aware that my praise strikes director Christian Witte as too little and late, and that it may also strike many serious devotees of German Riesling as too little to justify these wines high prices. Still, it is important for wine lovers not only – as always – to make up their own minds, but also to have the experience of tasting Riesling from this legendary location. I re-tasted the 2008 collection this year, incidentally, and was not moved to revise in any significant way the evaluations I expressed in my issue 187 report, other than to register a slight disappointment with the degree of botrytis prickliness and bitterness that had (at least temporarily) crept into the Beerenauslese. (I also tasted a sizeable portion of the Rheingau collection of G. H. von Mumm – an estate long jointly owned and managed with Schloss Johannisberg and repeatedly tipped in recent German publications as up-and-coming – but once again found those wines relatively disappointingly lacking in personality and at times diffuse or ill-balanced.) Importer: P. J. Valckenberg International, Tulsa, OK; tel. 918 622 0424

An open and inviting dry Riesling, medium bodied and plump, with tree fruits like apples and pears interwoven with citrus and crushed stone. Easy to drink and easy to like. ——J.C.(12/1/2011)—— 87