A gorgeous dry Riesling, floating gracefully across the palate, expressing notes of kiwifruit, white raspberry and kumquat. Beautifully textured and full of vibrancy, which comes from the well-integrated acidity and mineral details. Lots of finesse and good length. Drink now through 2028. 51 cases imported.??–AZ??Region: Germany / Mosel Select to Add

Features plenty of vanilla and spice notes to the ripe pear, dried apple and peach compote flavors. Good length midpalate, with a lush finish that offers hints of anise. Drink now through 2017.??–KM??Region: Germany / Mosel Select to Add

From a superbly-exposed parcel hear the Rotlay and tiny, loose clusters on some of the estate’s oldest vines, the Selbach-Oster 2009 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese trocken was able to hang until very late, yet finished with a scarcely noticeable 12.5% alcohol. Iris and heliotrope in the nose entice one to experience a creamy, buoyant, palate brimming with fresh apple and tinged with alkaline and stony notes that follow into a juicy finish. The sense of flowers wafting above stone is quite uncanny, and this is a wine to linger over lest you mistake its relatively quiet personality for failure to communicate something profoundly delicious. I would expect this to be worth following for at least a dozen years, Selbachs’ being among the most reliable performers among legally dry Mosel Rieslings. I did not taste the corresponding Kabinett, which was still winding up fermentation last September. “The autumn was super, with little stress,” remarked Johannes Selbach, who is more often seen furrowing his exceedingly high brow when describing even a highly successful harvest! What there was of botrytis, he reports, came late, and he reported that what rain there was in November was of negligible significance. Where many 2009 collections disappointed slightly as they reached the limits of possible vintage Oechsle, the Selbach-Oster collection proceeded from strength to profound strength. Most of the wines were bottled in May, but some of the dry and nobly sweet lots were very late even to finish fermenting and a few had not yet been bottled even when I tasted in September. True to an intention he stated last year, Selbach has bottled without Pradikat the fruits of block-pickings from his three top parcels, each named on its label. (For more about the principles involved, consult in particular my note on the 2005 “Schmitt” Auslese – in issue 169 – and that on this year’s dry “Schmitt” Spatlese below.) This year’s collection continues the trend for wines from Zeltingen’s Schlossberg to shine with special complexity and elegance after the many years in which they seemed destined at this address to take a back seat to those of Sonnenuhr. Not only were the vineyards of Zeltingen among the most celebrated on the Mosel during the 19th and early 20th century, but Karl Heinrich Koch epochal survey of 1881 places the Schlossberg as among the Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer’s top 11 sites, and one can appreciate this while savoring a wine like this year’s “Schmitt” trocken.Importers: There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

Picked nine days later and from a stonier section of the site than the corresponding dry Kabinett, Selbach’s 2008 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese trocken displays a Schlossberg-like smoky pungency in the nose and predictably more amplitude than the corresponding Kabinett. A cidery expression of apple with piquant toasted nut and apple pip accents lingers along with a kiss of wet stone. This should prove useful for at least half a dozen years. Johannes Selbach responded to the high energy and acidity of the 2008 vintage by giving most of the wines extra fine-lees contact and later-than-usual bottling. As a champion of (in his words) “genuine Kabinett” and “drinking wine, not trophy wine” and a resister against the encroachment of high must weights and residual sugar to which the weather in most recent vintages has left even him susceptible, Selbach was predictably overjoyed both with the refreshment, delicacy, and infectious drinkability made possible by vintage 2008, and with its preponderance of Kabinett and Spatlese. Several single-parcel, block-picked (i.e. the whole crop at once), vineyard-designated wines were essayed (that from the Anrecht – within Zeltinger Himmelreich – being new this year) although at Spatlese rather than, as usually in the past, Auslese Pradikat level. In fact, it remains Selbach’s intention to very soon remove the already small-print reference to Pradikat from these special bottlings, whose focus is intended to be entirely on reflecting terroir and vintage. (Ironically, though, the reference to the sites themselves remain in very small print, because the authorities are testy about the use of geographical designations other than those of the official Einzellagen singled-out – or, to put it more appropriately, assembled – in 1971.)There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

Selbach’s 2007 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese trocken smells of toasted grains and nuts, apple (with its pips), lemon (with its zest) and narcissus-like musky, bitter-sweet floral perfume. With a fine sense of stuffing and a satiny texture, it finishes with refreshment and clear flavor definition, displaying a diversity of saline, stony, alkaline, and somehow crystalline mineral shadings, although it no doubt runs in a direction – revealing peach kernel and citrus oil bitterness – that some tasters will find marginally austere. My experience leads me to plan on enjoying this for 10-12 years. Quite generally, Selbach’s dry wines will surprise you in that regard, if you let them. The Selbach crew did some pre-selection at the end of September, leading directly into a main harvest that lasted until November 10. Johannes Selbach says he often had to find things to keep his crew occupied while waiting for what he judged the optimum moments to pick. After having been through 2006, he was determined to have everything and everybody ready should circumstances suddenly dictate haste, which of course they never did. Selbach was delighted – as a self-proclaimed defender of “true Kabinett” – to have some genuinely light-weight yet intensely-flavored wines this year, and he was the first to acknowledge that not only the prevailing weather but also the abundant crop (even allowing for thinning) helped make ripe-tasting yet relatively low must-weight Riesling possible. He notes that there was relatively little botrytis, and then late. In view of that assessment, I was surprised at the extent to which this year’s Spatlesen evinced evidence of it. As for the dry and nearly-dry wines in this year’s collection, “it’s like a homecoming,” remarks Selbach, “to get back to wines with stuffing but that are sleek, anything but heavy, and inviting of the next sip.”There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel (516) 677-9300.