At 11.5% the lowest in alcohol Breuer single-vineyard wine in many years, their 2009 Rudesheimer Beg Schlossberg Riesling evinces aromas of green tea, lily-of-the-valley, narcissus, and fresh lemon. Infectiously juicy, invigoratingly bright, and persistently, intriguingly floral and herbal, this buoyant Riesling offers further fascination in its finishing deposit of crushed stone, salt, and suggestively crystalline mineral nuance, all vibrantly interacting with citrus and flowers. Polished in texture even if lean in terms of body fat, acidity, and mineral adamancy, it should be worth following for at least 6-8 years and might prove more ingratiating in personality after a few years in bottle. 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

The Breuer 2008 Rudesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling trocken is lemony and bright throughout, as well as suffused with mirabelle distillate, crushed stone, and a wafting perfume of iris and peony. As in the corresponding Roseneck, a high-glycerin richness of texture helps ameliorate the sharpness of acidity. One really tastes the tiny-berried intensity of the crop – from which two nobly sweet wines had already been picked-out – in a palpable sense of extract on the palate and the chew of fruit skin and bite of white pepper that join citrus zest and stone in the finish. This is as gripping and as opposite from soothing as the vintage gets! Follow it for 6-8 years. 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