2005 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel AP 17 06: A very great low-Botrytis GKA
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:45 am
2005 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel AP 17 06; 8 pabv; $105/750 ml before BP; Hart Davis Hart, Chicago, Il, Valkenberg Worms and Tulsa, OK. Sampled with the Coravin II and a Riedel Riesling and Impitoyable.
Medium gold-green with a hint of warmth in the color; some spritz; some persistent sheeting but no tears shows good extract. Starts with a room-searching vivid Lodi-apple aroma perceptible at distance. Typical Prüm WS vineyard styling with warm honey, white peach, and the merest note of nitrocellulose plastic (which is what artificial flowers were made from back in the day). Filled in with a neutral minerality and ending with a little veal broth and slight caramel and milk chocolate candy, flirting with both dry, earthy, and sweet scents. Very little if any diesel yet; perhaps still in the baby fat stage.
This is quintessential Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese from Joh. Jos. Prum in its early days: Perfectly balanced restrained sweetness and juiciness, with an appetizing mid-palate touch of bitterness but with low white-wine tannins. Its strong suit is a wonderful almost lacy finesse, such as can be found (in a dry incarnation) in the best Wachau Riesling Smaragds. Finishes up with tangerine-European orange-ripe lime notes amidst the persistent fruit. I'd say it's a low-Botrytis wine for a GKA; but that's just the style of the vintage. Drink, according to taste, now through 2035.
This wine certainly showed best of almost all the wines poured at a Wehlener Sonnenuhr Taste-Off at MoCOOL 3 years back, and I kept seeing out of the corner of my eye folks trying to shake the last drop out of the bottle directly into their open mouths, heads canted back. Sadly, Barbara missed out of getting a taste then, despite this vineyard and house style being what she most loved about Riesling; before I could bring her a sip, the bottle was dry. These three bottles were purchased in her memory, so she could enjoy it vicariously through my enjoyment on what would be the eve of our eleventh anniversary. However, the red roses she loved are as usual up on the mantle.
Today, this is the fifth Coravin tap into the same bottle, April 17, 2017, after a fourth tap with Jackie last night (Sunday) when she got back from visiting with Tracy and family in Indianapolis. (Last night there was more diesel and more rusticity/coarseness at refrigerator temperature; this tasting is near room temperature.) From Riedel Riesling: olid bronze color with hint of orange and green; actually looks like there is limited botrytis from color. Very thick sheeting on sides of glass with little to no tears at 8 percent EtOH by volume. Almost no diesel right now with Thompson seedless grapes and white peaches, with honied beeswax and slight tangerine peel. Has gained some delicacy in the direction of typicity; very limipid now and trips lightly over the tongue; finish like some exotic honey--like peach-flower ordelicate tangerine honey. I'd say my guess about selection against botrytis is quite accurate. What a nearly perfect wine! Coarseness is nearly completely gone; shows that there is a little change over the last six month in the right direction from this tapped bottle.: originally was very powerful to the point of coarseness; now this shows that five to ten years more will put this solidly near the peak. Drink now-2027 for those, like me, with statistically limited life expectancy.
Tasting from the Impitoyable gives similar notes but the nose is, although equally subtle, considerably more complex on the high end, with balanced scents of bitterness, honey, and salinity of great harmony.
97+/100.
Medium gold-green with a hint of warmth in the color; some spritz; some persistent sheeting but no tears shows good extract. Starts with a room-searching vivid Lodi-apple aroma perceptible at distance. Typical Prüm WS vineyard styling with warm honey, white peach, and the merest note of nitrocellulose plastic (which is what artificial flowers were made from back in the day). Filled in with a neutral minerality and ending with a little veal broth and slight caramel and milk chocolate candy, flirting with both dry, earthy, and sweet scents. Very little if any diesel yet; perhaps still in the baby fat stage.
This is quintessential Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese from Joh. Jos. Prum in its early days: Perfectly balanced restrained sweetness and juiciness, with an appetizing mid-palate touch of bitterness but with low white-wine tannins. Its strong suit is a wonderful almost lacy finesse, such as can be found (in a dry incarnation) in the best Wachau Riesling Smaragds. Finishes up with tangerine-European orange-ripe lime notes amidst the persistent fruit. I'd say it's a low-Botrytis wine for a GKA; but that's just the style of the vintage. Drink, according to taste, now through 2035.
This wine certainly showed best of almost all the wines poured at a Wehlener Sonnenuhr Taste-Off at MoCOOL 3 years back, and I kept seeing out of the corner of my eye folks trying to shake the last drop out of the bottle directly into their open mouths, heads canted back. Sadly, Barbara missed out of getting a taste then, despite this vineyard and house style being what she most loved about Riesling; before I could bring her a sip, the bottle was dry. These three bottles were purchased in her memory, so she could enjoy it vicariously through my enjoyment on what would be the eve of our eleventh anniversary. However, the red roses she loved are as usual up on the mantle.
Today, this is the fifth Coravin tap into the same bottle, April 17, 2017, after a fourth tap with Jackie last night (Sunday) when she got back from visiting with Tracy and family in Indianapolis. (Last night there was more diesel and more rusticity/coarseness at refrigerator temperature; this tasting is near room temperature.) From Riedel Riesling: olid bronze color with hint of orange and green; actually looks like there is limited botrytis from color. Very thick sheeting on sides of glass with little to no tears at 8 percent EtOH by volume. Almost no diesel right now with Thompson seedless grapes and white peaches, with honied beeswax and slight tangerine peel. Has gained some delicacy in the direction of typicity; very limipid now and trips lightly over the tongue; finish like some exotic honey--like peach-flower ordelicate tangerine honey. I'd say my guess about selection against botrytis is quite accurate. What a nearly perfect wine! Coarseness is nearly completely gone; shows that there is a little change over the last six month in the right direction from this tapped bottle.: originally was very powerful to the point of coarseness; now this shows that five to ten years more will put this solidly near the peak. Drink now-2027 for those, like me, with statistically limited life expectancy.
Tasting from the Impitoyable gives similar notes but the nose is, although equally subtle, considerably more complex on the high end, with balanced scents of bitterness, honey, and salinity of great harmony.
97+/100.