2017 - Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel, Joh. Jos. Prum

The 2017 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese (Gold Capsule), AP 17 18, is deep and flinty on the perfectly ripe, intense and tropical-scented nose with its ripe yellow nectarine and peach aromas. The wine exhibits very fine botrytis with crunchy-salty slate features on the palate and is racy-piquant, highly stimulating, crisp and crunchy on the finish, with lingering salinity. This 2017 Sonnenuhr is still very young and needs time to calm down but is still lush and fresh, and the bottle will be emptied before you have even thought about the wine. It's very long, complex and tensioned—just fabulous. Tasted in March 2019.

Scents of pear and quince suggest a fresh as well as jellied aspect, mingled with mint, fennel and anise. The creamy palate delivers a corresponding combination of freshness and cooling green herbacity as well as bright grapefruit and lime citricity that is remarkable for a wine at once richly confitured in flavors and slicked with honeyed traces of botrytis. As if the aforementioned complex and harmonious juxtaposition were not striking enough, this beauty’s vibrant, soaring finish adds stimulating cress-like nips to its already diverse herbal arsenal. (I have not tasted the bottling of Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese Goldkapsel – A.P. #21 – that went to auction.)