Destined at some point for auction, the 75 liters of Fritz Haag 2009 Braunebeger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese present a semi-tropical effusion of peach preserves, papaya, and pink grapefruit, all slathered in honey and overlain by wood smoke and truffle. As noted in a couple of other instances in the present collection, there is greater opulence but also more prominent – or at least, a more detached sense of – acidity than in the corresponding Juffer, while the latter displays greater levity and poise. Still, there is overwhelming richness and amazing persistence to the flavors here simultaneous with intense citricity; and yet more awe-inspiring than today’s performance is the thought that this will surely display even greater complexity and more refined comportment over the course of its next half century or so.
“You had to wait to pick,” comments Oliver Haag picked, “but not too late. Because after the end of October we had more rain, and by then the stems weren’t just ripe but just about shot (fertig), so that the grapes were literally hanging by a thin thread.” Different degrees of double-salt de-acidification were essayed (always on must), frequently only on certain lots of an eventual blend; but of the unabashedly residually sweet bottlings, Haag insists that only the Kabinett reflected a significant degree of de-acidification. Haag in my view quite correctly characterizes his generic bottlings as most illustrative of the vintage’s challenges and his selectively-picked residually sweet wines as being above-average ... “average” at this address, of course, having over the past several decades designated a very high quality indeed. “There were a lot of tough decisions to be made this year,” he relates. “Should we harvest this parcel or that? Pick now or later?” I share Haag’s opinion that as a group these wines will need longer than usual in bottle to really show their stuff.
Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. ( 800) 596-9463
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