Racy and powerful, showing lots of slate and sea salt accents to the peach and pippin apple flavors. Quite juicy in the midpalate, offering glazed citrus and nectarine with hints of licorice. Best from 2015 through 2040. 300 cases made.??–KM??Region: Germany / Rheingau Select to Add

Picked-out near the beginning of harvest, as is standard procedure for botrytis selections chez Breuer, their 2009 Rheingau Riesling Auslese – incorporating fruit from multiple sites – delivers fresh pineapple, kumquat, and lime with an overlay of honey and a hint of caramel. Uncannily combining brightness with creaminess, this proves as pure, intimate in scale and winsome as any generic Auslese I can recall from its producer. I would plan to enjoy it over the next 12-15 years. Theresa Breuer underplayed the effects of drought conditions during late summer and early autumn 2009 on the performance of her familys vines in the exposed, rocky Rudesheimer Berg, and, admittedly, there are drip lines in some locations to compensate. But I can easily imagine a connection between that drought and the somewhat peaky acids and strident personalities of many wines in the present collection, and Breuer notes that the slightly lower must weights and consequently lower finished alcohol of several wines probably also reflects at least in part vine stress. (The measured levels of acidity are still lower this year than in the corresponding 2008s.) Picking began already at the end of September and lasted until October 25, under conditions Breuer described as “relatively relaxed.” Incidentally, I re-tasted the top 2008s at this address and would rate the Nonnenberg and Berg Rottland a notch up on my account in issue 187. This is an instance where 2009 is I believe highly unlikely to ever approach the outstanding quality level of its immediate predecessor. (Note: most of the dry-tasting Breuer wines are legally trocken but not labeled as such.)Imported by Classical Wines, Seattle WA 206 547 0255

Something is wrong here. Insipid and bitter. Tasted twice, with consistent notes. 450 cases made.??–BS??Region: Germany / Rheingau Select to Add

While the Breuers’ generic 2008 Rheingau Riesling Auslese – incorporating fruit from the Bischofsberg and a bit from the Rudesheim “crus” – represents an early picking of botrytis (and the Breuers have always maintained that truly noble rot is virtually always early rot), its dominance of over-ripe cantaloupe, peach, and musk doesn’t convey to me much nobility, let alone excitement. Rich and creamy but without notable delicacy on the palate, it finishes with a slightly confectionary suggestion of nut brittle, marzipan, and honey joining its very ripe reservoir of fruit. This wants for focus and (surprising chez Breuer) for efficacious acidity. At more than 9,000 man hours including the time spent on intensive selection, Heinrich Breuer says this was one of the most labor-intensive and expensive harvests in the estate’s history. “We have 80 parcels in Rudesheim and are very conscientious about checking each one every couple of days to make sure the acidity doesn’t drop too low, to check the must weights, and to deal with any issues that might arise. We were in fact happy to have gotten around a half a gram more acidity at harvest than in the 2007s,” continues Breuer, who says it was really the phenolics and not the quality of acids or levels of sugar that changed while they picked in the course of October. Reports have reached me of the extent to which the top 2008 vintage Rieslings here are said to have became more harmonious and complex in the course of last autumn, so I may well have underestimated them based on my September tastings. But I was already totally disarmed and amazed by the quality of the several best nobly sweet wines, coming as they do from an estate that treats that genre very much as an afterthought (or, more accurately, as a part of pre-harvest provided noble rot is already there) and from a vintage in which so few such wines were essayed nation-wide.Importer: Classical Wines, Seattle WA; tel. (206) 547-0255