2016 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Grosses Gewachs

The 2016 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling GG Alte Reben offers a clear, refined and delicately flinty bouquet of ripe white fruits and crushed minerals with lovely purity. Round and lush, this is a full-bodied, intense and elegant Sonnenuhr with a powerful finish. Fine tannins here and good texture. The acidity is salty-piquant and perfectly integrated. This GG is clearly characterized by its long aging on the lees, which adds texture and finesse. Long and salty in the finish. A lovely wine—lush and vital and always piquant.

Apple and white peach are strongly marked by the piquancy of their seeds and pits but fortunately preserve a modicum of primary juiciness. There is a greater sense of stuffing and fullness here than in other Loosen 2016 Grosse Gewächse, but less animation or sense of detail. The bitter side of vanilla bean points toward the Einzellage of origin, and there is a prominent undertone of wet stone in the seriously sustained finish. But, apropos of “serious,” don’t look to this wine for charm! Like past installments, the 2016 issues principally from vines planted in 1911 in an unconstructed portion of the Sonnenuhr Einzellage known as Laychen.” Loosen maintains that a focal-point location, combined with the abundance of finely morcellated slate from which it gets its name, makes Laychen the site in the Wehlener Sonnenuhr with the finest potential, which he finds already reflected in the present wine. I can’t identify here the surplus of “finesse” or “elegance” – vis-à-vis, say, the corresponding Treppchen, Würzgarten or Himmelreich – that Loosen as well as some of my fellow critics typically perceive in his Grosse Gewächse from Wehlener Sonnenuhr. I tasted this one late in July 2017, approximately two months ahead of its anticipated bottling date.