Schlossgut Diel Scheurebe Spatlese, Nahe, Germany

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The Diel 2008 Scheurebe Spatlese is outrageously typical of its grape in its intensely pungent aromas of sage flower, catnip, pink grapefruit, and cassis; audaciously sweet on the palate, so that a rather candied citrus and herbal lozenge sensation is engendered; and finishes with the sort of tenacity that “lozenge” portents. If you are both a Scheu-lover and a sweet tooth, you’ll love this, though I’d still be inclined to drink it on its own and within the next 6-8 years. There were only 300 bottles, but virtually all of them came to the U.S. Caroline Diel is taking the reins at her family’s estate, and results in 2008 are as impressive as one would have expected given the track record at this address. The team here did not start harvesting until the third week in October and picked for nearly a month, due to which lateness the measurable acid levels (which were not adjusted) were relatively low by vintage standards, but the impression of acidity was more than vivacious and efficacious enough. On a quest for purity and authenticity, the Diels did not include in their bench trials for the blending of Grosse Gewachse any small lots of off-dry wine such as might in past have been employed expressly to fine-tune the finished levels of residual sugar. Instead, they let the blends all remain quite dry. Armin Diel has for at least the past dozen years championed and cherished the Mosel stylistic ideals of delicacy and of high residual sugar balanced against acidity. His choices of Mosel-born cellar master Martin Franzen (now of Muller-Catoir), and more recently of Moselaner Christoph Friedrich, testify to this proclivity. But there has never been a better vintage in which to give these ideals fluid realization. So if you are a lover of Kabinetts and Spatlesen from the likes of Joh. Jos. Prum, Willi Schaefer, or the Haags, do not miss the show Caroline and Armin Diel have put on this year, and that could be playing in your cellar any night over the next two decades!Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300