2007 Domaine Weinbach Riesling Cuvée St. Catherine

The Faller 2007 Riesling Cuvee Saint Catherine – as usual, incorporating parcels from just outside of the Schlossberg cru – smells smoky, fusil, and alkaline in a way that suggests an older wine. Along with those elements come alluring perfume of rowan, heliotrope, and ripe apricot. Nicely balancing subtle oiliness, amplitude, and lushness with vivacity and refreshment, this persists with prominent inner-mouth esters and faintly bitter notes of fruit pit and alkalinity. The signals are too mixed for me to project beyond the next several years, and I would monitor this carefully in the cellar lest it not have the stamina one would ordinarily expect from its vintage and authors. This year, Domaine Weinbach will receive its official certification as organic and biodynamic growers. The Fallers did well in the difficult 2006 vintage – especially with those Gewurztraminer harvested before botrytis gained the upper hand – and with good reason expressed elation over the vibrancy and refinement that characterizes most of 2007s. Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel. (205) 980-8802