Winemaker Notes
The Juffer-Sonnenuhr vineyard is the choicest center cut of the Brauneberg hillside — it’s also the steepest and most south-facing part of the hillside. This Grosse Lage (Grand Cru) site produces profound, distinctive wines with great purity and concentration. Spätlese is the German term for “later picking,” where extra hang time on the vine brings greater concentration and depth of flavor. This is an intensely fruity, yet delicate Riesling cradled by alluring sweetness on the fresh finish.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2024 Riesling Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Spätlese is the picture of juicy zestiness. Tangerine peel and orange juiciness dance on salty slate, bringing the suppleness of their ripeness while remaining on the svelte, sinuous side that is so disarming. This is compact, direct, impactful and yet full of ease and fun. What a gorgeous wine. It is alive, energetic and delicious. (Medium)
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James Suckling
This very silky and elegant Spatlese glides over your palate in spite of its abundant acidity. The freshness of a mountain stream is married to succulent flavors of mandarin oranges and white peaches. Very long, filigreed finish.
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.