The 2016 Niersteiner Riesling Trocken, entirely sourced in the Orbel right next to the GG parcel of St. Antony, opens with a super pure and floral-scented slatey bouquet that indicates remarkable precision and finesse. Medium-bodied, pretty lush and round but refined and elegant, this is an excellent and salty dry Riesling with fine tannins, lingering minerals and a long, aromatic finish. A remarkably good wine and miles better than the 2015.

Issuing once again from vines in the Niersteiner Orbel, this delivers a gorgeous nose of mirabelle, quince and white peach garlanded in musky narcissus and peony. The palate is silken and opulent (at 12.5%, this wine is marginally higher-alcohol than its two village-level stablemates) but retains a fine sense of primary juiciness and energy. Smoke and crushed stone inflections add interest, and fruit pit piquancy lends invigoration to a finish that lusciously preserves the fruits and florality signaled on the nose. What a difference a vintage makes when one compares this relatively late-picked Niersteiner with its far less successful 2015 predecessor!