Powerfully spiced and rich-tasting, with plenty of white chocolate and espresso notes to the ripe peach, pear tart and dried apricot flavors. The complex finish is plush and creamy. Biodynamic. Drink now through 2023. 40 cases imported.??–KM??Region: Germany / Mosel Select to Add

The Busch 2011 Pundericher Marienburg Rothenpfad Riesling Grosses Gewachs is more ominously smoky and high-toned than most of its dry siblings in the present collection, and this corresponds to a palate impression more opulent and glycerol-rich but also more pronounced in its bitter tendencies and warmth. Brown spice-dusted persimmon and dried peach dominate in a persistent, ripe performance but not one in which there is any mouthwatering juiciness; and an impressive incursion of stone and alkali in the finish comes off in the piquant overall context of this Riesling as somewhat austere. Perhaps after having put a bit more distance between itself and its bottling date this will prove more winsome. I’d want to revisit it before attempting to prognosticate as to its longer-term potential. For its aggregate of quality and quantity, insists Clemens Busch, 2011 was about as good as he’s ever gotten, even allowing for crop lost to downy mildew, to the late August hail storm, and to the consequent need to eliminate some early, negative botrytis. But he readily admits that the thin-skinned berries wouldn’t have held out more than a few additional days if the September rains hadn’t stopped. While a bit of wine was harvested already in the first days of October, he reports that the weather turned so warm he declared a week-long moratorium on picking. That, he says, was the second existentially critical point in this vintage’s history, because had the October heat continued, it, too, would have spoiled success. That there was considerable botrytis is testified to by this year’s range of ennoble bottlings – largely late-picked, and even those gold capsule designated approaching 200 liters each – and is probably connected with Busch’s organic and biodynamic vineyard regimen. For whatever reason, notes Busch, botrytis-affected musts this year seldom exhibited enhanced acidity; and that proved, to my palate, a handicap for some of them. Picking continued until November 20, which is about as late as any German grower was still at it in 2011. Passive lees contact, Busch opines, was key to providing needed structure and flavor definition to wines from this vintage’s high-sugar, relatively low-acid musts from thin-skinned berries, and I can only add that it almost surely helped in buffering the several bottlings that strayed into 14% alcohol territory. Most of the Busch 2011s were not bottled before mid-summer, and high-sugar musts were still fermenting or had only just ceased fermenting last September and were not to be bottled until after the harvest or possibly even after the new year, so that among dry-tasting single vineyard wines I could not taste Fahrlay-Terrassen, Felsenterrasse or Raffes. (By the same token, I report below on a couple of 2010s that had not yet been amenable to assessment when I reported on the bulk of Busch’s 2010s in issue 199.) Busch has acquired the excellent former local Lenz-Dahm cellar, where his stocks will henceforth be more adequately accommodated than they were in warehouse-like conditions, but vinification will continue to take place at the familiar home venue. As part of the deal, yet more vineyards were acquired, reinforcing what is now Busch’s overwhelming dominance of the Marienburg. As he never tires of pointing out, other growers could have made something of their precious legacy but found the rigor of farming such steep, terraced sites – effectively accessible from the village only by boat – too onerous; and sold-out to him over the years. Both Busch sons have become increasingly involved in their parents’ labors in recent years, the elder having focused on the evolution of the estate’s biodynamic regimen, and currently embarked on an extended work-residence in France.Imported by Louis/Dressner Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 334-8191

Busch’s 2010 Pundericher Marienburg Rothenpfad Riesling Grosses Gewachs exhibits a chunkier sense of stuffing than a couple of its immediate siblings, yet at the same time a tarter expression of lemon. Minerality runs deep here, too, though in a simpler crushed stone sense than that exhibited by the most engaging wines in the present collection. Cress and peach kernel enhance the sense of austerity to this Riesling’s inarguably sustained finish. Perhaps it just needs more time to show its true personality, but I would want to revisit it before making any long-term cellaring plans. In contrast with most of his Riesling-growing countrymen, Clemens Busch claims that despite the vicissitudes of vintage 2010 and a harvest that lasted through the third week in November his (as always organically-raised) fruit was largely botrytis-free and amounted to a volume only 20% below long-term norms. What’s more, he claims to have harvested scarcely any (save botrytized) grapes at more than a high but manageable 11 grams of acidity and with a good 50% of that being tartaric. Of course, for wines to undergo malo-lactic transformation is not in the least unusual at this address and that was the case once again this year. But virtually all of Busch’s wines had finished both primary and malo-lactic fermentation (in some cases simultaneously – which he prefers – in others sequentially) by June, which is early for his estate. (Exception: one of three Trockenbeerenauslesen was still fermenting and had only reached 3.5% alcohol when I visited in September.) Low sulfur elevage with long lees contact is also normal here, but Busch believes that was especially critical for quality in 2010, guaranteeing that the wines would not harden and that healthy lees would perform a fining and imperfection-healing role such as he claims was taken for granted by Mosel growers two or three generations ago. Careful canopy management, notes Busch, was also critical to 2010 success as a condition for being able to sufficiently postpone picking. This year’s as usual long line-up, incidentally, should not be permitted to deceive: while there are many residually sweet wines in this latest collection, they make up only around 20% by volume of the estate’s 2010 crop. Busch testifies that there is quite a scramble now among young Punderich growers to get a toehold in the Marienburg’s steep slopes that he has in the meantime gone a considerable way toward monopolizing. “The fact is,” he points out, “that at least in their father’s generation such growers’ families had ample opportunity to rescue and cherish these steep slate slopes, but often instead heeded the call of fashion and invested in Dornfelder on the flat side of the river.”Mosel Wine Merchant (various importers); tel. (413) 429-6176; dm@moselwinemerchant.com ; +49 (0) 6742 8980 50; also imported by Ewald Moseler Selections, Portland OR tel. 888 274 4312

Busch’s 2009 Pundericher Marienburg Rothenpfad Riesling Grosses Gewachs is far more expressive than its “regular” Grosses Gewachs counterpart, and features allspice- and ginger-tinged peach with juicy as well as bittersweetly pungent orange. Glossy and fairly full (at 13.5% alcohol), its hint of salinity lends salvia-inducing savor to a generous if very slightly warm finish. One portion of the final blend for this underwent malo-lactic transformation. It ought to perform well for at least 5-7 years. “It was no lovely autumn,” notes Clemens Busch candidly. “We had to pick our botrytis wines very early. We had regular rain from the end of October on, and one really had to take great advantage of the dry days to finish.” Busch reports that while his lower-tier lots largely fermented unproblematically to dryness, his riper single-vineyard bottlings were sluggish, several ending up in the legally halbtrocken territory that I have personally tended to prefer at this address, not least because of the tendency for the trocken lots to betray elevated alcohol. Busch – for more about whose methods, style, and vineyards consult the estate introductions as well as the tasting notes in others of my recent Mosel reports – is unwilling to employ cultured yeasts or otherwise intervene to achieve legal dryness. In view of an unfounded and frankly uninformed phobia many Riesling lovers have when it comes to the very idea, it should be pointed out that most of Busch’s dry-tasting Rieslings have since 2001 undergone malo-lactic transformation. That did not however happen with his 2008s (whose high pH levels precluded it) and only selectively with these 2009s. Furthermore, in Busch’s cellar, this transformation – normally not profound, as his ripe fruit is typically not high in malic acid – generally takes place as an interruption during – rather than subsequent to – the alcoholic fermentation. This peculiarity, he contends, explains the absence of diacetyl or other problematic potential byproducts. Even the lighter cuvees here were not bottled until the three weeks leading up to my mid-September visit, and among those wines then being prepped for bottling were a Felsterrasse and Raffes too shaken-up from filtration for me to judge. That the nobly sweet wines here are as notable for their high quality as their abundance I suppose doesn’t need repeating, provided you survey my ratings.Mosel Wine Merchant Trier, Germany (various importers); tel. (413) 429-6176; +49 (0) 651 14551 38; also imported by Ewald Moseler Selections, Portland OR tel. 888 274 4312