Picked out from the material that informed the corresponding B.A., the Schonborn 2009 Erbacher Marcobrunn Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese is amber, viscous, and pungently smoky and spicy. Salted caramel, peach preserves, vanilla cream, and crystallized ginger inform a buttery palate rather incongruously laced with fresh lemon and adhering with formidable tenacity. Here is another case in the present collection where one can only wait for 25-30 years to see whether harmony and further complexity emerge. I dont expect the wine to decline until well past then. There are only around six dozen half bottles and I often wonder where such rarities actually end up, so I asked director Peter Barth about this instance. Six half bottles, he said, were sold off the top, “because at 600 Euros each I wasnt going to say no to that customer! Well trade some with our (wine growing) colleagues. The rest will go into our Schatzkammer for the future.” The latest collection from Peter Barth and his team further demonstrates the high standards that now prevail at this venerable estate. “The window for optimal harvest seems to keep narrowing,” Barth notes, and the relatively high finished alcohol levels on this years dry Schonborn Rieslings certainly testifies to that fact, leaving the 2008s at this address with a distinct edge over their 2009 counterparts. Despite the ravages of hail in Hattenheim and Erbach – including the loss of nearly one-third of the estates anticipated crop of Marcobrunn – the number of different bottlings from that site and from the monopole Pfaffenberg is still considerable. Various importers, including Dee Vine Wines San Francisco, CA; tel. (877) 389- 9463, Slocum & Sons, North Haven, CT; tel. 203-239-8000, Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700, Winesellers Ltd. Niles, IL; tel. (847) 647-1100

With the 2007 Erbacher Marcobrunn Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese we are at 438 grams of residual sugar, yet not exactly in Eszencia territory since - just as incredibly - this wine managed to ferment to a formidable 8.2% alcohol. Pit fruit distillates and fruit pit bitterness; honey, brown sugar, and cinnamon; peach preserves and vanilla extract are its defining features. The wine needs time to come into focus, although it is not as discordant as the corresponding Pfaffenberg and, surprisingly, not as overwhelmed by its sweetness, either. But it is massive and its evolution - other than the certitude that this will be measured in decades - inscrutable. Peter Barth took over cellar duties in 2001, and direction of the entire, fabled Schonborn estate in 2006. I had not visited in all that time - only heard rumors of a revival (tales of a sort that are too often false alarms when it comes to large, underperforming, noble Rheingau estates) - so I am happy to report that the renaissance of Schloss Schonborn is for real. Ten years ago, I found Schonborn's dry wines too austere and their sweet wines exaggeratedly so. Examples of these extremes have not been eliminated, but there are plenty of gorgeous and without doubt age-worthy wines that steer a steady stylistic course. Although - like most large German estates - Schonborn has pruned the number of single-vineyard wines and styles on offer when compared with the enormous annual line-ups that prevailed until a decade ago, this has been done with sensitivity to synergistic blends, and allowing plenty of room for each of the domaine's most celebrated vineyards - in particular their monopole Hattenheimer Pfaffenberg with 12 bottlings this vintage! and Erbacher Marcobrunn - to show-off. Various importers, including Dee Vine Wines San Francisco, CA; tel. (877) 389-9463, Slocum & Sons, North Haven, CT; tel. 203-239-8000, Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700

This is a zinger. Lemon candy, cassis, dried apple and honey mingle, then the bracing structure puckers the mouth. It's intense and laserlike, needing time for its residual sugar and acidity to integrate. Best from 2009 through 2040. 2 cases made.??–BS??Region: Germany / Rheingau Select to Add