2011 Monzinger Halenberg Riesling Beerenauslese
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Tasting notes
Halenberg is a dry site and botrytis and raisining set in quite easily unless it’s very wet. 100% botrytised grapes. In 2011 the pickers sorted into healthy and botrytis grapes and then the latter was sorted to have raisins separated: one bucket for green grapes, one for the fresh botrytis ones and one for the raisins they use for this BA and one for mouldy grapes that are thrown away. Since the 2018 vintage they pick the whole bunches into a little box and then sort in the winery, which is even more precise. Total production was about 150 litres only. Frank's father Werner said they‘d never make a TBA because grapes just don‘t shrivel enough. Deep coppery gold. A rather burnt note to the nose. Acid seems quite low, just creeping in at the end. (JR)
Critic scores
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Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Informed primarily by the fruit of a very young vineyard from which healthy material was first pulled out for dry wine, the Schonlebers’ 2011 Monzinger Halenberg Riesling Beerenauslese features scents and flavors of herbal liqueur, dark honey, and salted caramel, all complimented by creamily textured, expansive, viscous palate presence. Impressively high 9.5 grams acidity serves to keep the sap moving and the taster craving another sip. For all of this elixir’s sumptuousness and a buttery; yeast- and vanilla-tinged; pastry-like sense of enveloping richness, it retains a core of primary juiciness and harbors a salinity that sent my salivary glands into palpitations. Look for at least three decades of utter delight. I tasted one half – constituting a 50-liter lot picked at a for this estate record 250 Oechsle must weight – of the anticipated Halenberg T.B.A.. But since the rest was still fermenting – and looked unlikely to reach legal vinosity, which would positively necessitate a blend to achieve sufficient alcohol – anything I were to write about my experience would be deceptive. But let me at least note that there was more than enough brightness, levity, and penetration to this honeyed, peach syrup-like elixir to sustain a profound and prolonged future. Veteran Werner Schonleber stresses the role played in 2011’s high quality by tiny drought-impacted berries as well as, naturally, the growing season’s early start; generally cool nighttime temperatures; and five weeks of ideal weather from mid-September on. That small berry size obviated any green harvest, but there was a substantial “pre-harvest” of Riesling – destined largely for generic bottlings – from September 26, with the two Pinots being picked immediately thereafter. The main harvest for Riesling commenced October 3, lasting for two weeks. Like many estates, botrytis arrived here directly on the heels of the heavy rain that fell around September 10-12, but dried to ideal purity and fineness to serve for ennobling concentration without overtly fungal character or less desirable concurrent infections. Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644; also imported by Dee Vine Wines, San Francisco, CA tel. (877) 389- 9463
The aroma leaves me speechless (temporarily!), so gloriously intense and pure is it – apricots, and oranges but with an almondy complexity of botrytis, plus an oily minerality. Rich and viscous and overwhelmingly beautiful. Hard to believe it is a BA and not a TBA. So sweet but so wonderfully fresh. (JH)