SR | This 2012 Schoenenbourg is just beautiful on the intense but refined and balanced nose, which shows a ripe and concentrated fruit (pineapple), with delicate but obvious oak aromas. Round and quite sweet on the palate, this is a charmingly round and lush Riesling, with creamy, sur-lie, textured, fine tannins and again some oaky flavors. Still young and sweet, I wonder whether the wine will ever gain more purity and Schoenenboug personality with further bottle age? 92
AJ | Mid-depth of green-gold, with silvery glints: pale for its years. This is one of our richer Schoenenbourgs: a slather of hot summer fruits and a slide of crème anglaise. Less plant sap and jungle leaf than some. Terrific scents, though: compelling and delicious; you can't not sip ... and just getting into its stride, with lots left to give. Pure, fresh, planty and sappy, vital, articulate, scrutable, unique. Did you know Riesling could be so open, so mellow, so brightly feathered, so soft, so allusive, so forceful, so demonstrative, so breathy, so exuberant, so carnivalesque? All the aromatic allusions are here on the palate in one broad, serene, harmonious, and cavalier array. Lovely stuff. 95
AR | A youthful, bright, greeny lemon in color, this shows the attributes of high-quality Riesling in its freshness of aroma (for its age) and the characters of evolved Riesling, the fragrance of light smokiness and a hint of pepper and lime marmalade, and even a (likely lees-derived) tingle on the tongue; the fruit, when you taste it, is pure and surprisingly almost shockingly youthful, thanks to an evident underlying nerve of fresh, minerally acidity to keep it real; the real deal, in fact, and a Dorian Gray of an Alsace Grand Cru. 95