German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

MOSEL WINES
66
Sleek, feminine, elegant and soulful wines with silky
kerpen at a glance:
fruit of exceptional beauty. Prices reflect the “Wehlen
premium” but are still below the levels of many of the richer and more famous!
They are clear and lithe in structure but with juiciness
how the wines taste:
which gives them a haunting charm. Leesy along Selbach
lines, with even more flowery perfume. Unabashedly pretty but not vapid, not just pretty.
GKE-098 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett
GKE-098H 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett, 12/375ml
CORE-LIST WINE. There’s one bottling already being shipped to cover Spring-DI
orders. This is a different wine, noted as such. It’s (obviously) very ripe, and shows two
profiles: one pristine and cool, the other a little more musky; it’s dense and long, gentle
yet determined, pliant yet chewy. Yummy yet yummy!
SOMMELIER ALERT! SOS: 1 (5-13 years)
GKE-099 2005 Graacher Domprobst Riesling Spätlese Feinherb
Y’all tasted the `04 at Martin’s tables during our DI-shindigs; you told him you liked it,
told me you liked it, tell any writer who asks you that there’s “more demand” for dry
German wines, and then you, um, didn’t order it. I’m perplexed. This `05 is even better,
with a fascinating terroir-drenched nose — woodruff, balsam, Mirabelle — the palate is
sinewy and masculine but the complexity of berry-flower-fruit-slate interplay is striking,
as is the gracious ripeness.
SOS: 0 (now to 5 years, again 12-15 years)
GKE-100 2005 Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Spätlese +
GKE-100H 2005 Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Spätlese, 12/375ml
Man what lovely quality of fruit! Acomplex basket of ten heirloom apples; the palate has such
a powdery dispersal of slate it’s almost creamy; once again firm, even phenolic, but the spiciness
and length are fabulous; this is Grand Cru stuff from a site that doesn’t always give it.
SOS: 2 (8-22 years)
GKE-101 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese* (Artist Label) +
CORE-LIST WINE. And the only core-list wine with a label with a bird in a boat! We
did an unusual thing with this wine; blended it down with a “lesser” cask to improve
it! The first cask was opaquely sweet, but this one has a lusty breeze of Mirabelle and
vanilla atop the usual peony-scented cool Sonnenuhr fruit; it’s hauntingly long, with
amazing grip, with a yin-yang of fruit and slate (you can almost hear them talking to
each other), and this is outstanding in any context.
SOS: 2 (9-24 years)
GKE-102 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese
A little botrytis and a lot of “gold-ripe” fruit, and even a pretty pointed jab of acidity
allied to a wonderful quality of fruit, coming almost to seckel-pear in its refined malic
ripeness and granular texture.
SOS: 3 (10-26 years)
GKE-103 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese** ++
GKE-103H 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese**, 12/375ml
A masterly performance, both from nature and vintner; Kerpen has rarely shown such
a sure hand with explicit botrytis; there’s wonderful malty-salty fruit, great solid structure,
and the lingering, searching finish is pure Sonnenuhr.
SOS: 3 (12-30 years)
GKE-104H 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese***, 12/375ml (+)
GKE-105H 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling BA*, 12/375ml ++
GKE-106H 2005 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling TBA*, 12/375ml ++
These are by far the greatest dessert wines Martin has made. The 3-star Auslese has 145
Oechsle (TBA starts at 150!), and is polished and clear with lovely gentle power. The BA
is a wonderfully delicate, winsome elixir, and the TBA somehow continues to be astonishingly
sleek and clean despite a throbbing 250 Oechsle, maintaining form, outline
and clarity throughout.