From younger vines in a reconstructed section, the 2005 Pundericher Marienburg Riesling Spatlese Noar reminds me of Normandy cider in its pure fruit aromatics, suggestions of brown spices, nut oils, and attractive phenolic tartness which provides counterpoint to the wine’s silken texture and obvious richness. This is unabashedly sweet – even though Busch wanted to see it go dry – but is impressively clear and well balanced, with a long, delicate, soothing finish that is totally winsome, even if not (yet, at least) enormously complex. Give this 6-8 years in bottle and it will doubtless charm you for an equally long period thereafter. Clemens Busch farms the steep slopes of the once-famous Pundericher Marienburg on the Lower Mosel entirely organically, which make him unique in the region and a source of wonder for his fellow vintners. Most of his top wines are labeled with their old pre-1971 site names. (Increasingly many growers are managing to get away with this.) Busch has been bottling nobly sweet Riesling since 1999, but never before – he hastens to inform me – in quantities remotely like those that nature imposed on him in 2006: Nine Auslesen, three Beerenauslesen, and a T.B.A.! Like Reinhard Lowenstein (and in a similar style), Busch is best-known inside Germany for his dry (or near-dry) single-site wines, which are not released for more than a year after harvest. (In fact, most of the 2006s had not finished fermenting yet when I visited last summer.)Mosel Wine Merchant selections (various importers), Trier, Gemany; fax 011 49 (0)651-14551 39; also imported by by Ewald Moseler Selections, Portland OR; tel. 888-274-4312