Wine Advisor
Schloss Lieser, Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Grosses Gewächs 2015
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: David Schildknecht
Fresh apple strongly marked by its seeds makes for an at once juicy and bitterly concentrated impression, and a firm feel, along with stony and alkaline undertones, pulls this performance in an austere direction. The finish clings with oily piquancy while revealing intriguingly smoky and iodine-like notes. This is certainly Wehlener Sonnenuhr in a very different key from that adopted by most of this site’s prominent shareholders, although I sense a similarly to the Grosses Gewächs from von Kesselstatt, and this year’s Loosen Grosses Gewächs from the site is also unusually austere even by the standards of its genre. I’m very cautious in my prognostication of ageworthiness because I don’t expect the bitterness to recede and I imagine that the overall impression may be even more austere after a few years in bottle.
About the Producer
Harvest is the most important thing. It can last from 4-8 weeks depending on the vintage. We pass through the vineyards 3-4 times in each parcel. Really, you must be in the right vineyard at the perfect time. This comes from long experience but also some luck, of course! Quality is always decided and selected in the vineyard. In the cellar the philosophy is very clear: We make the wines with the highest quality fruit we possibly can. Only top sites can produce great wines. In the cellar, the fermentations are always spontaneous. This is how we like our Mosel Rieslings and we feel it’s an important part of our style. We almost always use stainless steel, except for cooler vintages where we employ some oak. We don’t do macerations and we strive to do our pressing when it’s cool. We press always with low pressure as we want the wines to be fine and elegant, preferring the structure of the wines to come from extended lees contact rather than maceration or phenolics from pressing. We don’t filter the juice and do a sedimentation as we want to see relatively clear juice going into the fermentation tank. The wines ferment for as long as they need, but often fermentation takes about 6-10 weeks. After fermentation, we leave the wines on the gross lees for as long as needed. We taste the wines all the time during this period and the decision for racking is always done by taste, really when I am thinking that they are ready. After racking the wines spend three to four months on the fine lees. We decide when to rack and bottle, again, according to how the wines taste. The wines are made in very reductive conditions and so some wines take longer to be ready for bottling than others. We make wines for drinking but also for aging, so it’s important not to rush them. I always use native yeasts and have for decades. To me, the native yeasts bring more complexity, more texture, but they don’t lose the clarity that makes the wines of the Mosel so special.
