SR | Pure, delicate, and discreet, but highly refined and elegant on the nose opens this lovely, flinty 2021 Schoenenbourg, which reveals an oceanic salinity to pair with perfectly ripe fruit aromas, which are not clearly Riesling. The wine is lean and elegant on the palate, fresh and filigreed, as well as savory on the finish. There have been richer and more hedonistic Schoenenbourg Rieslings in recent years, but this wine represents as much the vintage as it does Schoenenbourg. The 2021 is purity and freshness and naked terroir, whereas the hedonistic features have still to be developed on the palate. If there were any suspicions that Schoenenbourg is a warm terroir, here is the proof that it is not. 92
AJ | Bright silver-gold with green glints. Soft, with some vegetal notes (rare in the Schlossberg wines); understated but compelling. Leaf and plant sap as much as overt fruits here. On the palate, the wine is very dry, almost green but finally not so; just on the cusp of phenolic ripeness. It's sappy, long, with some lime as well as apple (but less peach than the nose suggested). Bracing, pure, and true; not exactly stony, but "mineral" in the sense that there are non-fruit flavors here. Tonic and delicious, though hardly a crowdpleaser (unless it is a crowd of geeks)! A sappy, lime finish. 91
AR | Pale lemon in color, this is fresh and piquant in aroma, with citrus and spicy pepper notes, and when you taste, there's quite a hit of sour acidity underlying the fruit that makes it initially quite austere and dry; delicately dry, in fact, for food, which, to my mind, it needs, to bring out that fruit sweetness; a feeling that the underlying phenolic grip rather confirms. 89