Wine Advocate
par Stephan Reinhardt le 22/10/2024
The 2018 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Vieilles Vignes Riesling Kabinett was selectively harvested from a parcel of 130-year-old ungrafted vines that was handed down by Zacharias Bergweiler, Ernst Loosen's grand-grandfather. Picked at optimal Kabinett ripeness early in the harvest, the grapes were gently pressed in a restored basket press from 1910, then fermented naturally, stopped by racking the fermenting wine into another new 1,000-liter fuder barrel that had just been sulfured, and it then matured in a traditional 1,000-liter fuder cask for 24 months. Bottled with 9.5% stated alcohol and 31.2 grams per liter of residual sweetness, the wine offers a deep, multi-layered and delicately spicy nose that combines ripe, elegant fruit aromas with notes of hazelnuts and mint as well as gray slate. Juicy, round and elegant in the mouth, with a savory grip reminiscent of tea, this is a mouth-filling yet fine and delicately structured Sonnenuhr with plenty of substance and structure as well as remarkable length. The acidity is ripe and fine and also playful, and the wine itself is not even remotely reductive but serious and expressive. This is an excellent Kabinett, whose predicate is rather irritating. The wine is almost too complex and serious for the Kabinett predicate. It is in fact a grand cru with unsweet residual sugar and 8.9 grams per liter of total acidity. It's irresistible, just like Mosel Riesling from the 1950s and 1960s. 1,200 bottles produced. Natural cork. Tasted in October 2024.