The St. Urbans-Hof 2009 Leiwener Laurentiuslay Riesling Spatlese represents raw material comparable to the corresponding Grosses Gewachs but fermented spontaneously and in fuder until it stopped itself at 11% alcohol and a mere 21 grams of adeptly-integrated residual sugar. A gorgeous nose of orange blossom, peony, and ripe apple leads to an irresistibly juicy, harmonious, expansive yet delicate palate performance, culminating in a long caress. Weis spoke of his 2009s retaining “cut,” but this is instead one of those unemphatic yet complex and enveloping emblems of its vintage. It should exude charm for another 15 years. Nik Weis thinks 2009 – in which his team harvested well into November – really demonstrated the cumulative effects from a decade of intensively “in gardener’s fashion” hoeing the soil, composting, pruning short, returning wire-trained vines to single posts, and in general farming so as to put the brakes on sugar accumulation in the grapes and permit ripening to greater incipient complexity as well as delicacy. This entails inter alia backing-off from too aggressive a green harvest when it comes to the very best sites, and leaving a few more bunches to hang for longer. “Anytime you’re in a position to harvest a Trockenbeerenauslese from the Ockfener Bockstein, and you feel compelled to place the Piesporter Goldtropfchen before the corresponding Ockfener Bockstein in the tasting sequence, that’s a great vintage,” says Weis, echoing a traditional sentiment that Saar Rieslings are a touchstone of top quality throughout the greater Mosel region. Indeed, this collection offers the very apotheosis of Bockstein, and if you don’t think this site (or at least, the finest parts of it) is truly great – I didn’t myself until I encountered old wines at this address 15 years ago – get ready to have a conversion experience! Incidentally, Weis has bought up the rest of the original Zickelgarten within Bockstein, so that were he to win permission to re-activate that site name (retained in the 1971 Wine Law but last utilized by Kesselstatt in 1983 and later abrogated after no subsequent owners chose to declare it) he would have a really top-class monopole. For the second year running at this address – and despite the fact that fermentations were relatively fleet – there is only a single legally trocken bottling, namely the inaugural Grosses Gewachs – not coincidentally a loner as well for having been fermented with cultured yeasts in order to insure that its finished residual sugar qualified for the club in question.Importer: H. B. Wine Merchants, New York, NY; tel. (917)-402-0456

The 2005 Leiwener Laurentiuslay Riesling Spatlese – an auction lot – combines terrific ripeness and abundant flavors with delicacy and refinement. Smelling like licorice-studded orange-vanilla ice cream, it comes onto the palate with a correspondingly creamy yet clear and juicy fruit presence. Orange, vanilla, and licorice continue into the long and luscious finish, together with brown spices, lime peel, honey, white pepper, and wet stone. Like the other St. Urbanshof 2005 Spatlesen, this will certainly be a good candidate for at least two decades of cellaring. The team here – cellarmaster Rudi Hoffmann, vineyard manager Hermann Jostock, and proprietor Nik Weis – continued their streak of highly successful harvests this year, albeit at the price of extremely low yields.Importer: H. B. Wine Merchants, New York, NY; tel. (917) 402-0456