Kiedrich Grafenberg, Riesling, Grosses Gewächs, 2017
A typically regal Grafenberg GG composed of complex gravel and stone flavours drenched in bergamot and pithy yellow grapefruit, mint and lime leaf fruit. There's an abundance of glorious fruit in 2017, a fabulous noble concentration of flavours bound up in an intense almost fleshy texture. This is on the ripe side of the tracks but maintains poise through sheer power and the rockiest of cores. We love it. Raised entirely in doppelstuck.
critic reviews
Smoky, stony and oily-fusil elements dominate already on the nose, as well as on a firm, full palate whose apple and grapefruit juiciness are piquantly pip-inflected. The gripping finish displays almost implosive concentration but also shares the corresponding Turmberg’s sense of severity due not just to borderline bitterness, but also to its strong sense of chalk suffusion and stony underpinnings. I realize that many knowledgeable observers – including Wilhelm Weil himself – associate this sort of severe concentration with longevity, but I prefer to temper my prognostication, concerned that past a decade in bottle a wine like this might become more austere and spare.