Saarburger Rausch, Riesling, Auslese, Goldkap, 2018

Name: Saarburger Rausch, Riesling, Auslese, Goldkap
Brand: Zilliken
Price: 581.09 GBP

Available Vintages

all 2005 2015 2018

justerini & brooks tasting note

A fabulous nose that offers up salty slate, then peaches and honey. The texture here is fine silk, as this caresses the palate, dropping the freshest fruit notes of the range, sun kissed peaches, red apple and grapefruit flavours stream across the palate, all drenched in acacia honey. It immediately brings to mind the opening bars of The Beatles’ “Across the Universe”. And for all the rich seduction the honey brings, there’s a kiss of fine acidity and freshness on the finish. “Goldcaps are built of many fine layers” Hano opined. This one certainly seems to be.

critic reviews

96/100David Schildknecht,Vinous

Scents and flavors here pull strongly in a tropical direction, featuring mango, guava and Persian melon whose richness is modestly cut by the zesty side of candied pink grapefruit peel and the tangy element of glazed pineapple. The feel is seductively creamy, and although this elixir’s sheer viscosity is surely at least as high as that of the collection’s auctioned Spätlese and Auslese, there is an unsurpassed sense of levity and delicacy to this gold capsule Auslese. Influxes of salted caramel and florally perfumed honey enhance the multi-fruit concentration of a vibrantly, lusciously and mouthwateringly sustained finish. Hanno Zilliken is reminded by this wine of the corresponding Auslese in his vintage 1983 collection, the first I tasted from him and the one that first brought his estate international attention. I have not included “A.P. #5” as part of this wine’s name because, unusually given a vintage this rich in high-must-weight Zilliken elixirs, only one of them is labeled as Auslese Goldkapsel. There were in fact two casks designated as gold capsule Auslese, but the Zillikens felt that their contents were too similar to merit separate bottling.

DRINKING WINDOW 2020 - 2055

date of review 07/2020

98/100Stephan Reinhardt,Robert Parker Wine Advocate

From single, hand-selected berries harvested in the second week of October, with legions of wasps that terrorized the pickers, the 2018 Rausch Auslese Gold Capsule (AP 5) is spicy and fresh, very clear and excitingly fine, with lemon notes intertwining with crystalline and precise slate aromas. On the palate, this is an incredibly clear, precise and piquant yet dense and concentrated Auslese with a long and still aromatic, salty-vital and stimulatingly grippy finish. Selected from 2.5 fuders. A fabulous wine with a weightless 143 grams per liter of residual sugar. Tasted in June 2019.

DRINKING WINDOW 2020 - 2080

date of review 08/2019