91 David Schildknecht - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

"A delicate, sweet Schloss Saarstein Kabinett – while only one of the four tanks that informed it was fermented spontaneously – proved too sulfurous and loaded with fermentative residues to properly assess on the one occasion when it crossed my path last September, but the 2008 Serriger Schloss Saarstein Riesling Spatlese put on an impressive show. Lime, pineapple, and grapefruit citricity accompanied by tart, fresh cherry and yellow plum tinged with sassafras inform a plate of flatteringly and surprisingly creamy texture given its efficacious acidity, and with a ravishing sense of delicacy and lift that carry into a generous finish of cherry, pineapple, yellow plum, and lime underlain with and set-off by wet stone. A high 85 grams of residual sugar come off as improbably moderate in sweetness. This represents a late picking and two casks from vines planted in the ‘50s and early ‘60s after Christian Ebert’s father purchased the estate, and which are located next-door to the estate’s very old vines, exposed more to the village than the river. Two further casks were under consideration for inclusion, but wisely, Ebert decided to be restrictive and insure an outstanding result, far and away his most harmonious, sensually alluring, and complex wine of the vintage. Incidentally, it quite closely resembles the 2004, which is showing really beautifully today."