Its good see with his 2009 Hallgartener Hendelberg Riesling trocken that Kuhn and his daughter Sandra – who briefly fielded wine from this commune with her own label – are back to bottling Riesling from that neighborhood up above Oestrich. A sea breeze-like sense of saline and alkaline intimations in the nose mingles with musky narcissus, fresh lemon, and a hint of white truffle. When taken together with a strikingly mineral palate impression, the overall effect is rather Chablis-like in as way frequently demonstrated by Hallgarten Riesling (although this site is primarily slate). A glossy texture and impressively long finish of mirabelle and lemon tinged with salted radish strikes a lovely balance between soothing and invigorating refreshment. Here is one of those Kuhn 2009s where the analysis surprises you with its low acidity. It keeps gaining nuance as it opens to the air, and I would anticipate plenty of pleasure from this for the better part of a decade if not beyond. “I regret now that we only bottled half of this,” notes Kuhn. There had been 3,000 liters but the balance was blended into this years excellent “Jacobus” cuvee. 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