Oestricher Lenchen, Spätlese 303, 2018
Coming exclusively from the Eisenberg this is rich with red apples and sweet acacia honey on the nose. This is in reality more of a baby Auslese than a Spatlese, dripping with quince paste, peaches in sweet syrup and honeysuckle. Pure pleasure, luscious without being over the top.
critic reviews
Mango, pink grapefruit, pear, lychee, honeysuckle and lily combine for a headily exotic and almost overripe nose. Luscious, almost gaudy ripeness and perfume are the inner-mouth story as well, backed by gloss and considerable sweetness – though not the excessive sweetness that this bottling at one time tended to exhibit. The lingering finish displays real vibrancy, no doubt in large part owing to the wine’s harboring vintage-atypically high acidity of 10 grams. And that in turn is almost certainly a result of light desiccation of healthy fruit, which is also what gives this bottling its Auslese-like aura. (For the history of this bottling and its name, see especially my review of its vintage 2015 instantiation.)