From the last third of this year’s harvest – over-the-top wine from this famous site not having been a real risk in the present vintage, points out cellarmaster Bernard Schug – the Loosen 2008 Erdener Pralat Riesling Auslese boasts not only an imposingly honeyed overlay to its citrus liqueur and mango scents and palate impression and a creamy richness of texture, but also gravity defying levity and finishing finesse. This may never prove to be the most complex of Pralat bottlings, but it deserves 20-25 years to show what it can gain in bottle. Interestingly, it represents essentially a single day’s picking during which and from which further, higher must-weight lots of Pralat were simultaneously picked- (or, as the case may be, snipped-) out. Ernst Loosen insists he aims to observe an upper limit of 12.5% alcohol for his trocken bottlings, a level that one might have expected was easily achievable in 2008; but in fact, a portion of this vintage’s collection comes close to transgressing it. When it comes to residually sweet Kabinett – a genre in which Loosen has long excelled – his frequently-voiced concerns that “the real thing” was becoming almost impossible (or at least, impossibly expensive) to achieve nowadays certainly do not apply to the 2008 vintage, when his collection of Kabinetts is not only superb, but also lively and feather-light. Indeed, the whole 2008 Loosen Oeuvre – while consisting of fewer wines than usual, with its nobly sweet selections even more (and more spectacularly) focused than usual on Pralat – is superb. What’s more, even cellarmaster Bernard Schug voiced his amazement at just how little sweetness most of the residually sweet wines display.Importer: Loosen Brothers, Portland, OR tel. (510) 864-7255

Like biting into a fresh apple, this is clear and pure, picking up hints of peach and nectarine. Round and balanced, with a hint of slate on the lingering aftertaste. Drink now through 2028.??–BS??Region: Germany / Mosel Select to Add

This auslese is less obviously fruity than many of Loosen’s recent efforts, with a smoky, fuel-oil overlay to the honeyed and stone-like flavors. At only 7.5% alcohol, it’s sweet yet not heavy, balanced by bright acidity and a hint of prickly CO2 still in evidence. Drink it over the next 15–20 years.——J.C.(3/1/2011)—— 92