Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Spatlese 2019
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Winemaker Notes
The Juffer Sonnenuhr is the choicest center cut of the Brauneberg — the steepest and most south-facing part of the hillside. This Grosse Lage (grand cru) site produces profound, distinctive wines with great purity and concentration.
The Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese is an intensely fruity yet delicate Riesling from fully ripe grapes, made in the moderately sweet Spätlese style.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese opens with a bright and coolish, very delicate and filigreed bouquet of herbal/floral aromas intertwined with bright, young spring fruit and aromas of broken slate. On the palate, this is a round, charming, highly finessed and very elegant Spätlese with the lovely fruit and juiciness of the JSU and its unrivaled finesse. The weightless finish is salty-piquant, precise and highly stimulating. This 2019 is a picture-book Spätlese from the Juffer Sonnenuhr.
Barrel Sample: 95-96 -
James Suckling
Theoretically, the Spatlese category is no longer cool, because these wines are medium-sweet and therefore not food-friendly (try tempura, Vienna Schnitzel or Thai red curry). But this is a masterpiece of floral finesse! Lovely, mandarin note at the long, delicate and just off-dry finish. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
Pristine gooseberry and white grapefruit introduce this pure-fruited spätlese. While delicate in frame, it's a powerfully concentrated, penetrating semisweet wine that balances brilliant lemon, lime and white peach against a dazzling mineral backbone. It's juicy and exuberant in youth but should stay at peak through 2030 and gain more earthen, savory complexities thereafter.
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Wine Spectator
Compelling and complex, this version is marked by its scintillating acidity and slate underpinning. Light on its feet yet intense, with peach, apricot and lime fruit that shows a saline accent and a mineral finish. Best from 2025 through 2043.
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Tasting Panel
Smooth and sweet, this exemplifies extra-ripe Riesling. Pure, deep, and long.
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A sixth-century chronicle state that the vineyards of Brauneberg were "propter vinum" (because of wine) bequeathed to Verdun, France, then an important Roman commercial center. Napoleon paid tribute to the Brauneberger wines by fixing their prices above those of all other Mosel wines. When, in 1806, the Mosel vineyard sites were divided into classes according to the quality of their wines, Brauneberg was the only name in the first rank.
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.