Wine Advocate # 178
Aug 2008

David Schildknecht

87

Drink: 2008 - 2009

$20 (20)

Von Buhl’s 2007 Riesling Kabinett Armand is dramatically different in style. Loaded with ripe apricot, musk melon, mango, and brown-spiced persimmon (yes, color this orange!) it unabashedly displays its sweetness on a creamy, delicate palate, then finishes with modest length but generous fruit accented by a hint of vanilla and with persistently refreshing, ripe acidity. I would drink this over the coming yea

Wine Advocate # 178
Aug 2008

David Schildknecht

89

Drink: 2008 - 2010

$17 (17)

The latest von Buhl Riesling (featuring musician Maria Schneider’s signature and a Jazz theme on the label), this 2007 Riesling halbtrocken is labeled “medium dry” on one side but that is highly misleading as a translation since it tastes essentially dry. It also tastes delicious. Suggestions of sweet corn, nut oils, and citrus zest on the nose usher in a subtly oily-textured, expansive, yet refreshingly bright (and merely 11% alcohol) palate. A piquant, bitter-sweet, finish features white peach, maize, peach pit, toasted nuts and citrus oils and will have you smacking your lips. In a sign of the stylistic times, von Buhl unfortunately bottles increasingly few wines with precisely this sort of uncanny balance. Instead, most of the single vineyard wines here (as at so many other estates) are either legally dry (trocken) and 12.5% and up in alcohol, or else quite obviously sweet. But besides the impeccable balance of this halbtrocken wine in and of itself, you’ll find it amazingly versatile if you give it a chance to perform at the table over the coming year or two.