Weingut Clemens-Busch Pundericher Marienburg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese, Mosel, Germany

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A Busch 2010 Pundericher Marienburg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese – comprising a relatively generous 150 liters – concentrates candied grapefruit and lemon rinds in a matrix of honey and caramel. This is striking for its polish, viscosity, and purity of ennoblement. An ominously prickly overlay of lemon rind and radish proves to be benign, as the residual sugar and extract here keep the extreme acids in line. I found myself compulsively licking my lips. Don’t look here for nuance for at least 20 years and expect the wine to remain vital for at least twice that long. 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

Herbal liqueur with alkaline overtones in the nose of a Busch 2009 Pundericher Marienburg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese migrate to the palate accompanied by an uncanny recreation of vine flower jelly in a buoyant, enormously sweet and persistent show. I’m willing to put considerable faith in a future for this Riesling that will involve the tempering of its sheer sweetness and the emergence of greater textural and flavor nuance. But you need the assurance of at least 30 years of wine consumption ahead of you to justify acting on that faith.“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

The Busch 2007 Pundericher Marienburg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese is scented with high-toned mint, lemon oil, peach preserves, distilled yellow plum, white raisin, and nippy horseradish. Amazingly creamy, rich, and wafting – almost weightless – on the palate, this shares with many of the best wines in this collection at all levels of sweetness an alluring nut paste element. It also boasts Eszencia-like apricot paste character and near-gelatinous viscosity, penetrating esterous perfume and bracing, perfectly-integrated lemony citricity and salinity, and phenomenal persistence as well as clarity and differentiation for a wine this extreme in ripeness and residual sugar. You’ll have to have at least two decade’s patience with this. Remarkably, a gold capsule T.B.A. will also have been bottled that was still fermenting as of last autumn.Clemens Busch – among the Mosel’s few organic vintners, and the undisputed champion of the Lower Mosel’s steep Pundericher Marienburg – is also rapidly demonstrating that he is simply one of the collective Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer’s exceptional talents, not to mention stylistically free spirits. Most of his top wines are labeled with their old pre-1971 site names. Nature thrust on him in 2006 an unprecedented 9 Auslesen (many distinguished only by number), 3 Beerenauslesen, and single T.B.A. (most of which were reviewed in issue 179). In 2007, an at least slightly more normal – not to mention more marketable – balance of dry-tasting (though not always legally trocken) wines was restored, but success, Busch insists, was possible only by dint of great patience and then, when the time was ripe for picking, in great haste. A considerable number of overtly nobly sweet wine was picked in the process, as there was no lack of botrytis in this fungicide-free zone.Mosel Wine Merchant selections (various importers), Trier, Gemany; fax 011 49 (0)651-14551 39; also imported by by Ewald Moseler Selections, Portland OR tel. 888 274 4312

I have not tasted Busch’s 2006 T.B.A. since it finally stopped fermenting. And the 2005 Pundericher Marienburg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese I tasted – astonishingly – was one of two, the other of which was still fermenting as the 2007 harvest approached! The bottled 2005 T.B.A. is impressively viscous. For all of its white raisin, sultana, honey, and caramel flavors, it is also shot through with lemon, grapefruit, and yellow plum preserves that lend invigorating brightness and tartness. A honey and cinnamon-dusted lemon- and vanilla-cream character dominates the impressively long finish, yet here, too, there is luscious citrus and it’s as though the thick, deep golden fluid acted like amber to trap fresh pit fruits. The polish, purity, and clarity of flavor are formidable and I have no doubt this is hiding more than it is showing. Revisit in 20 years and hold for 50, perhaps longerClemens Busch farms the steep slopes of the once-famous Pundericher Marienburg on the Lower Mosel entirely organically, which make him unique in the region and a source of wonder for his fellow vintners. Most of his top wines are labeled with their old pre-1971 site names. (Increasingly many growers are managing to get away with this.) Busch has been bottling nobly sweet Riesling since 1999, but never before – he hastens to inform me – in quantities remotely like those that nature imposed on him in 2006: Nine Auslesen, three Beerenauslesen, and a T.B.A.! Like Reinhard Lowenstein (and in a similar style), Busch is best-known inside Germany for his dry (or near-dry) single-site wines, which are not released for more than a year after harvest. (In fact, most of the 2006s had not finished fermenting yet when I visited last summer.)Mosel Wine Merchant selections (various importers), Trier, Gemany; fax 011 49 (0)651-14551 39; also imported by by Ewald Moseler Selections, Portland OR; tel. 888-274-4312