Dr. Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Dry GG Alte Reben 2016

Review
Loosen and Schug (a.k.a. “Erni and Berni̶1;) harvested from October 4 through November 5, 2016, doing so steadily and at a relaxed tempo thanks to almost continually clear skies. Even with the catch-up supplied by ideal September and early October weather, though, Loosen emphasized the irregularity of ripening that remained - the legacy of a spun-out, rain-plagued flowering. His approach was to pick most parcels and vines twice, on the first pass separating ripe, healthy fruit for Grosse Gewachse and more shaded lower-must weight clusters for Kabinett; on the second, focused on bunches closest to the cane, segregating the healthiest for Grosses Gewachs and those overripe or tinged with botrytis for Auslese. “It was hard to find Spatlese” observed Schug, “because after Kabinett, Grosses Gewachs and Auslese material, there wasn’t much left. And must weights didn’t go much higher [in healthy fruit]. What we collected for Spatlese was literally late-picked.” -From Mosel Riesling 2016 Part 2: Longuich to Graach (Jan 2018) by David Schildknecht

Wine maker notes
The famous “sundial” vineyard, in the village of Wehlen, produces the quintessential Mosel Riesling: delicate and refined, with racy minerality and endless charm. Grosses Gewachs (GG) means “great growth” in German and is the designation for an estate’s best dry wine from a Grosse Lage (grand cru) vineyard. This wine was fermented with indigenous yeasts in a neutral oak cask, and kept on the full lees for a year before bottling. The extended maturation time allows the wine to develop greater texture and to find its natural harmony.

Tasted in late July 2017 and slated for late September bottling, this delivers a fascinating combination of coolness and incisiveness by way of greenhouse-like scents of foliage and flowers, seedy kiwi, zesty lime and cress. Glycerol-rich but with underlying firmness, the palate is not at all weighed down by its 12.5% alcohol. This finishes with penetrating, refreshingly juicy persistence and admirable animation, salinity and impingements of cress and crushed offering saliva-inducement and invigoration.