2007 Scharzhof Riesling

The generic Muller 2007 Riesling Scharzhof – incorporating fruit from the estate’s considerable, steep Saarburg vineyards – smells of kirsch distillate. Sappy and refreshing, delicate, and mingling cherry, lemon, and wet stone, it finishes with an especially invigorating combination of salinity and fruit skin chew. I would plan to enjoy it over the next 3-4 years. Egon Muller compares his 2007s with the wines of 1997, which here displayed exceptional purity and advanced, largely noble rot-free ripeness, although the total number of bottlings in 2007 was significantly smaller, and the number of Auslesen alone this year three times greater. (I missed tasting one Spatlese, A.P. #6 that sold out early on, and I have not yet tasted this year’s Trockenbeerenauslese, which hadn’t even finished fermenting on the occasion when I tasted Muller’s other 2007s.) Importer: Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY (212) 355 0700