1998 Herrenberg Riesling

I visited the Ruwer estates alphabetically this year, so by the time I reached Grunhaus, my breath was baited for something extraordinary. I was not disappointed. You cannot judge '98 here by the standards of such classic vintages as '59, '75 and '89, or even '93 and '95, since the current vintage is, with a few largely frozen exceptions, confined to Spatlese and "below" and to what Carl von Schubert has characterized as "light, minerally, food-friendly wine." But there is profound complexity here as well, with tightly stitched wines likely to improve and to satisfy immensely if cellared. "We started picking on October 15," reports von Schubert, "but the early picking was all a negative selection. The real harvest didn't begin until November: three weeks of work, and then, two days after we had our end-of-harvest party, we had two early mornings to gather Eiswein. We had protected about 1.6 hectares with plastic wrap, which also helped generate enough botrytis for a Trockenbeerenauslese." (Valckenberg)