Critic ratings
robert_parker
2011
Rating:
95
–95
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
robert_parker
2006
Rating:
91
–91
The 2006 Monzinger Halenberg Riesling Beerenauslese represents a further selection literally “in house” of the fruit harvested for the corresponding “two star” Auslese. (Unlike growers in other regions, Schonleber points out that he did not have “Fuders full of nobly sweet 2006s – thank God!”) With honeyed, palpably thick richness, and glossy polish, this Riesling redolent of candied, caramel apple and Chartreuse-like herbal liqueur cannot fail to be impressive. But it lacks the striking personality and poise of the “two star” Auslese and suggests a slightly fungal, primary side of botrytis that is slightly less noble. With such strength, diverse flavors, and length, this may well acquit itself fantastically over time, but one should anticipate measuring its evolution in decades.
“The Nahe had the capability to render really good dry wines this year,” asserts Werner Schonleber. “Elsewhere, the botrytis was problematic, or the ripening took place too quickly. But we caught the whole spectrum here.” He proceeded to prove this memorably in the glass, with the finest collection I have ever tasted at this address (as well as – improbably – one in which Fruhlingsplatzchen outperformed Halenberg).
Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608-9644; also imported by Dee Vine Wines, San Francisco, CA; tel. (877) 389-9463
robert_parker
2007
Rating:
92
–92
Surprising notes of pepper cress, musk, and smoke serve as the pungent calling card for botrytis in the nose of Schonleber’s 2007 Monzinger Halenberg Riesling Beerenauslese, which comes to the palate viscous and redolent of peach preserves, pear chutney, and caramel, the cressy nip of noble rot persisting up until a long, wafting, if (for the vintage) relatively soft finish. This was picked in an easterly section of the site where there is more water retention and hence earlier botrytis, although the wine’s sharp pungency and muskiness do not put me in mind of the best side of really fine, early noble rot. Perhaps I’m under-estimating the wealth of material here and it needed a bit more time in bottle to become more organized.
To say that Werner and son Frank Schonleber have been on a roll lately must count as an understatement (and that applies to 2008, too). Two heads are better than one, no doubt, plus the advantages of accumulated wisdom and acreage – the family is filling-in what was once a decidedly, in places depressingly patchy landscape by buying up prime parcels from retiring vintners – are obvious. The Schonlebers went over their vineyards in early October to pull out some botrytis that had already accumulated and to thin their crop, and began seriously harvesting Riesling after the 10th. The estate’s vines were largely spared savage but capricious hail that rained down on parts of the Fruhlingsplatzchen. Werner Schonleber draws a stylistic comparison with the 2002 vintage, which he convincingly demonstrated with several bottles.
Imported by Sussex Wine Merchants, Moorestown, NJ; tel. (856) 608 9644; also imported by Dee Vine Wines, San Francisco, CA tel. (877) 389- 9463