Winemaker Notes
This Riesling is rich in taste with a fresh, fruity delicate flavor.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Wonderfully expressive nose of honeysuckle and fresh garden herbs. Juicy, light-bodied palate with creaminess, slatey minerality and very elegant acidity. Long, zesty finish with plenty of mandarin orange character.
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Vinous
The 2024 Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett opens with subtle hints of creamy woodruff, candied angelica and wet slate. The palate is lightness itself, like a veil of scented fruit referencing green apple, supple, sweet but tart citrus, like juicy, pale pomelo, rounded out with a touch of white peach. It is wonderfully serene, cooling, elegant and precise. (Off-dry)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2024 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett displays lovely fruit intensity with subtle earthy notes, floral nuances and a hint of reduction. Full-bodied, juicy and piquantly racy on the palate, this is a fresh, elegant and ever-light-footed Kabinett yet with a sensual, juicy character. This is AP 05 25. 8.5% stated alcohol. Natural cork.
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Wine Spectator
Leans into its off-dry profile, with real concentration to the notes of pear, kumquat and lychee, which show impressive range and depth. Bitter herb and chalky mineral elements move through, with smoky petrol and flowers on the solid finish. Complex and long.
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.