2024 Weingut Joh. Joh. Prüm, Riesling Kabinett, Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Mosel, Germany.
Maybe a perfect harvest day wine, the 2024 version of J. J. Prüm’s Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett is delightfully fresh, mildly sweet and loaded with pure terroir driven intensity with crisp layers of slate infused tangerine, peach, green apple, mango and melon fruits, along with wet flint, chamomile and a white flower note. The Wehlener Sonnenuhr Vineyard, a top cru above the village of Wehlen, is named after the sundial erected in the vineyard in 1842 by Jodocus Prüm, an ancestor of J.J. Prüm and the current Prüm family, to give the workers a better time orientation as they work the awesomely steep slopes here above the Mosel River. This site is well known to Riesling enthusiasts and is maybe the signature expression of the Joh. Jos. Prüm estate along with the famous Graacher Himmelreich, it is set on classic deep, weather-beaten grey slate soils and old vines with an almost impossible 70% gradient, and its prime south-south-west exposure, making for intense and ripe Rieslings. This vintage, was not an easy one, but Katharina Prüm, one of Europe’s most prized talents, did a fabulous job here, this is everything you could want from a Mosel Riesling. These Joh. Jos. Prüm wines, like Willi Schaefer, are tough gets these days and not inexpensive, but they are must haves for Riesling freaks and are well worth chasing down, and this bottle was joyous with a Jalapeño topped cheese burger at lunch with a California (wine) harvest crew.
The Joh. Jos. Prüm winery, which was founded in 1911 in Wehlen, prefers 100% spontaneous fermentation with almost all being done in stainless tanks with usually about a year or more of lees aging in the upper end bottlings as this one. In the world of wine these, Katharina Prüm is a star and the J. J. Prüm winery is legendary, noted for traditional Mosel Riesling with incredible aging potential throughout the range, from Kabinett wines like this one to their “Gold Capsule” Auslese bottlings, which I must says are some of the greatest wines I’ve ever had. The Prüm’s are old school and like their Mosel Rieslings having some significant residual sugar, Manfred, Katharina’s dad, who really brought fame and world attention to these wines makes no secret of his longstanding disinterest in legally dry wines, he and now his daughter make uncompromising and unapologetic sweet Rieslings, but that have fine balance. The only fault here in the 2024 is that the bottle was dry so fast, it was a huge crowd pleaser, and I always knew I should have bought more of this pale greenish/gold hued Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett, but at least I know that the upcoming 2025s are already being talked up as a classic vintage and I cannot wait to try them! Okay, I’m a huge fan of Prüm and Riesling, but honestly if you’ve not had these wines, you really should change that as soon as possible. Thanks to Christian Adams of The German Wine Collection and John Haffey of Monday Wine Consulting for making this wine available to me, as I sadly had a rare corked bottle, that needed replacing, and this one made the wait all worth it!
($75 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive