Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Graceful, floral and flavorful, filled with elderflower, melon and star anise notes. This is very harmonious and complex, picking up durian and mineral details midpalate, coming together on the long conclusion. Drink now through 2029.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett is clear and bright on the nose, with ripe and intense but still discreet fruit aromas that intertwine perfectly with the slatey notes of the Sonnenuhr. On the palate, this is a mouth-filling, lush, creamy, salty-piquant, straight and pretty firm yet stimulating Kabinett with grip and tension on the finish. For now, I prefer the Graacher, but the Wehlener will surely develop and merit an even better score in a couple of years. Tasted in March 2019.
-
Wine & Spirits
It took three days for this wine to emerge from its reductive funk, but it was worth the wait: With air, this becomes sleek and elegant, its floral notes and juicy apple flavors carried on a smooth, oily texture that gives it substance. If you open it now, decant; but better to give it another year or two in bottle before pulling the cork with sashimi.
Riesling possesses a remarkable ability to reflect the character of wherever it is grown while still maintaining its identity. A regal variety of incredible purity and precision, this versatile grape can be just as enjoyable dry or sweet, young or old, still or sparkling and can age longer than nearly any other white variety. Somm Secret—Given how difficult it is to discern the level of sweetness in a Riesling from the label, here are some clues to find the dry ones. First, look for the world “trocken.” (“Halbtrocken” or “feinherb” mean off-dry.) Also a higher abv usually indicates a drier Riesling.
Following the Mosel River as it slithers and weaves dramatically through the Eifel Mountains in Germany’s far west, the Mosel wine region is considered by many as the source of the world’s finest and longest-lived Rieslings.
Mosel’s unique and unsurpassed combination of geography, geology and climate all combine together to make this true. Many of the Mosel’s best vineyard sites are on the steep south or southwest facing slopes, where vines receive up to ten times more sunlight, a very desirable condition in this cold climate region. Given how many twists and turns the Mosel River makes, it is not had to find a vineyard with this exposure. In fact, the Mosel’s breathtakingly steep slopes of rocky, slate-based soils straddle the riverbanks along its entire length. These rocky slate soils, as well as the river, retain and reflect heat back to the vineyards, a phenomenon that aids in the complete ripening of its grapes.
Riesling is by far the most important and prestigious grape of the Mosel, grown on approximately 60% of the region’s vineyard land—typically on the desirable sites that provide the best combination of sunlight, soil type and altitude. The best Mosel Rieslings—dry or sweet—express marked acidity, low alcohol, great purity and intensity with aromas and flavors of wet slate, citrus and stone fruit. With age, the wine’s color will become more golden and pleasing aromas of honey, dried apricot and sometimes petrol develop.
Other varieties planted in the Mosel include Müller-Thurgau, Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) and Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc), all performing quite well here.