Selbach Oster Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese 2019
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Suckling
James -
Parker
Robert
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
A big juicy wine with lively acidity, elegance, and perfect balance.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Hang on to your hat. With its enormous ripeness and brilliant acidity, this monumental wine defies the limits of the Spätlese category. None of the exotic fruit that’s so typical for 2019, rather you're in the kingdom of the peach here ! Decades of aging potential. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Planned to be a Kabinett that finally got too ripe (100° Oechsle), the 2019 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese * is clear and intense on the nose. Juicy and quite rich on the palate, this is a piquant and acidity-driven Spätlese with an enormously piquant and salty finish. Picke din the first week of October, it has laser sharp acidity that cuts through the rich texture that is based on 15% to 18% botrytis fruit. Tasted at the domain in September 2020.
Other Vintages
1999-
Spectator
Wine
Since 1661 the Selbach family has owned vineyards in the Mosel region. Their main treasure is simply what nature presents us with: excellent vineyard-sites, and old, ungrafted vines on steep, south-facing slopes planted on heat-retaining, mineral-rich, rocky slate soil. Their philosophy of winemaking is "hands-on" in the vineyards and "hands-off" in the cellar. Most of Selbach Oster wines are still fermented and matured in the traditional oak "Fuder"-barrels supplemented by a small number of stainless-steel vats. They do not use new oak for Rieslings to preserve the delicate structure of subtle fruit and crisp acidity as purely as possible
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.