Weingut Max Ferd. Richter Mulheimer Helenenkloster Riesling Eiswein, Mosel, Germany

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Richter’s 2007 Muhlheimer Helenenkloster Riesling Eiswein – harvested on the first of the pre-Christmas Eiswein days – displays some of the same dark hues as this year’s Sonnenlay Aulese, with date, white raisin, and caramel tones recognizable as effects of botrytis, but not of frost. Volatile, spirituous notes in the nose are more Eiswein-typical, if not entirely in a positive sense. Charred toasted nuts, candied citrus rind, and ginger lend bitter sweet and lightly sizzling notes to the finish, whose sheer penetration superficial, icing-like sweetness no doubt owe much to the freezing of these grapes. But this gaudy and undeniably impressive wine is far from classic Eiswein and I would be inclined to drink it young as a dessert wine (if one could afford it) rather than speculate on its long-term evolution. Dirk Richter is an historian of the Mosel as well as one of the region’s foremost growers, and he claims that on five occasions in the eleven years between and including the epochal vintages of 1911 and 1921, flowering on the Mosel took place in May ... but then not again until 2007. He started picking already in early October, but only as a means of thinning (“pre-harvesting”) his Brauneberg vineyards, and the resultant Kabinett is rather green in flavor. Harvest did not begin in earnest here until mid-October, and save for the two T.B.A.s that he painstakingly collected, Richter insists there was scarcely any botrytis. Interesting, the yields from Richter’s Wehlener Sonnenuhr vineyards – his only remaining ungrafted vines – were the highest this year that he has ever experienced, and the wines are by no means disappointing (although Auslese was not possible). The grip exhibited by his dry-tasting wines may in part come from the skin contact Richter gives most of them, in part to buffer their acids. Still, as he puts it, “with the intense minerality, strong acidity, and very low pH of Mosel Riesling, some residual sugar is needed. And here, with feinherb-as-trocken, that need is borne out quite clearly, and the wine tastes dry, and people drink it as ‘dry’.” What’s more, lower alcohol helps these “dry” Riesling dance. If feinherb (often as high here as 25 grams in residual sugar) works on Richter’s German customers, halleluiah! For anybody else, these feinherb Kabinetts should be no-brainers, especially at his prices. Richer shares my enthusiasm for the undeservedly obscure and misunderstood Pinot Blanc (a.k.a. Wiesser Burgunder), and is in process of doubling his acreage and planning to produce some Sekt from it as wellImporter: Langdon-Shiverick Cleveland,?OH; tel. (216) 861-6800