Having drastically diminished the volume of wine bottled as Laurentiuslay Spatlese this vintage, Weis elected to bottle a 2008 Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Spatlese A.P. #18 as his annual Spatlese auction offering. Despite the richness already of its A.P. #16 sibling, this bottling is even more effusive and opulent, drinking like an orange, vanilla, and sassafras creamsicle coated in honey and caramel. I would have picked it blind as an Auslese from Erden. Yet for all of its sweetness and leanings in a confectionary, gaudy direction, this preserves a sense of refreshment; of lift and delicacy; and of wet stone. Hints of anise, candied grapefruit rind and black currant add complexity and a more typical sense of the site. Weis and I imagine this as tasting the way a young 1975 Auslese might have. (My first experiences with that great vintage were in its third and fourth years, though my no means as a Riesling expert.) Look for two decades of pleasure from this. Sankt Urbans-Hof, notes proprietor Nik Weis, experienced a good ten degrees Oechsle difference in 2008 between its ripest Saar fruit – bottled as Spatlese – and that of the Mosel, which reached Auslese level even without stringent selection of botrytis fruit. “We find this a terrific vintage,” remarks Weis – who compares its style with 1998 – “inasmuch as at long last we again have the clear differentiation between Kabinett as it should be, Spatlese, and ennobled Auslese.” Remarkably, there is only a single trocken bottling here this year (from Mehring) which I did not taste and which was destined for the Landhaus Sankt Urban restaurant of Weis’s sister and brother-in-law.Importer: H. B. Wine Merchants, New York, NY; tel. (917)-402-0456