Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Riesling, Spätlese, 2017
The Schaefer parcel in Wehlener Sonnenuhr was unaffected by the August hails so far less selection was necessary here. Seamless and composed, with silken ripe yellow fruits, incredible elegance and a more polished underlying sense of minerality than the wines of Graach possess. A beautifully proportioned Spatlese of sleek and flowing lines.
critic reviews
Ripe pear and apple are seductively garlanded in freesia and honeysuckle on an utterly enticing nose. These transform on a delicate, subtly creamy palate into luscious fruit succulence and seductive liquid perfume. Piquant hints of apple and pear seeds serve for understated counterpoint and salinity lends salivary stimulation on a wafting, consummately refreshing and memorably persistent finish. From 1973, Willi Schaefer rendered a transcendently elegant Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese (today he would have labeled it “Spätlese”) with which the two of us stole the show in a mid-1980s tasting to which a formidable cast of Mosel and Ruwer vintners had brought mostly their Auslesen from the celebrated 1975 and 1976 vintages. This 2017 might well be his estate’s finest Wehlener since.