Dr. Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Alte Reben Riesling Grosses Gewachs Reserve 2016 Front Bottle Shot
Dr. Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Alte Reben Riesling Grosses Gewachs Reserve 2016 Front Bottle Shot Dr. Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Alte Reben Riesling Grosses Gewachs Reserve 2016 Front Label

Winemaker Notes

This precipitously steep and rocky vineyard yields some of the most elegant and sophisticated white wines in the world. The classic blue slate soil gives the wine a delicate, crisp acidity that perfectly balances the pure peach and lemon fruit. It’s a charming wine that dances gracefully on the palate.

Professional Ratings

  • 94

    Brimming with red gooseberry and white peach character this is sleek and elegant with an unobtrusive structure that drives this forward with considerable energy. Wonderful herbal freshness at the long, positively tannic finish. Drink or hold.

  • 93
    A sublime, graceful wine, with a silky texture and refined profile of apple and quince laced with chamomile and green herbs. Showing steely acidity that drives impressive power through the finish, this stays light on its feet despite the sneaky density. Really delicious and youthful, given its age. Drink now through 2026. 200 cases made, 50 cases imported.
Dr. Loosen

Dr. Loosen

View all products
Image for Riesling content section
View all products

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.

Image for Mosel Germany content section

Mosel

Germany

View all products

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.

CHMLSN9601116_2016 Item# 865012