2010 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese

Emphasizing the bitter side of the vanilla bean as well as toasted nuts and cyanic apple pit, the Prum 2010 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese A.P. #14 thereby generates a fascinating contrast with its apple jelly and honey richness. Alkaline and wet stone notes – beginning already in the nose – enhance that contrast. Nut oils, honey and apple reprise in a lusciously lingering finish. Less charming, refreshing, exuberant, or focused in finish than the corresponding Graacher, this Wehlener will almost certainly need a longer time to show its true potential; but one can rest assured based on one of Germany’s most certifiable track-records that at least a quarter century of pleasure is in the offing here. (I did not have opportunity to taste the corresponding auction cuvee, A.P. #26.) Katharina Prum says she and her father performed some de-acidification on their eventual generic Kabinett bottling as wine, but otherwise employed only sparingly light double-salt must de-acidification, insisting that late harvesting was the essential measure to be taken this year against high acidity. (And, as usual, most of the wines were bottled in high summer, relatively late when compared with those of nearly all their Middle Mosel neighbors.) It’s not so much that measurable acidity dropped significantly in the second half of October, opined Prum, but that the character of the acidity changed in immeasurable ways. Other than the aforementioned generic bottling, concentration was deemed simply too high this year for any of an already small crop to be rendered as Kabinett. And indeed, only the two most prominent sites were captured in Spatlese format; all else is Auslese and above. Prum notes that levels of residual sugar are seldom significantly higher this year than in other recent vintages, with the result that the wines generally tend to taste a bit drier. “Above and beyond” (as it were) those wines I report on (or whose existence I at least mention) below, there is material from Wehlener Sonnenuhr expected to inform long gold capsule Auslese, Beerenauslese, and Trockenbeerenauslese and be released in future years. (Veteran readers of my reports will know by now that while there are often multiple eponymous Prum bottlings, the family is loathe to disclose the A.P. #s of wines they serve in tastings, numbers that might be required to disambiguate between lots which they insist that there will only ever be very slight difference. In 2010, the crop is was so small that there are few alternate bottlings.) Various importers including: P. J. Valckenberg International, Tulsa, OK; tel. 918 622 0424 and Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA tel. 800 596 9463