The 2020 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Sp?tlese offers a pure and refined yet intense, finely flinty and iodine-scented bouquet of crushed stone and perfectly ripe and healthy raisins. Highly delicate and finessed on the palate, this is a light but lush and intense, mouth-filling and alluring Sp?tlese with fine slate grip. Absolutely gorgeous. 9% stated alcohol. Natural cork. Tasted at the domaine in July 2022.

Selbach's 2018 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Sp?tlese displays an intense and concentrated bouquet of candied fruits intermixed with saffron and coolish notes of crushed stones. Lush and highly finessed on the palate, this is a terribly sweet but very delicate Wehlener Sonnenuhr with a silky texture and remarkable elegance and mineral tension. This is still a baby, but it has great aging potential. 8.5% alcohol. Tasted from AP 219 in May 2019.

A very slow fermenter that had still not been bottled when I tasted it in September, Selbach-Oster’s 2009 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese smelled of lily, apple blossom, and heliotrope, with corresponding apple, vanilla, and wafting floral persistence on a delicate, creamy palate, complimented by hints of apple pip piquancy and wet slate. This is generously juicy, mouth-watering, and at once soothing and simulating, its finish persistently billowing and gently undulating. Look for 20 years of delight in its company. “The autumn was super, with little stress,” remarked Johannes Selbach, who is more often seen furrowing his exceedingly high brow when describing even a highly successful harvest! What there was of botrytis, he reports, came late, and he reported that what rain there was in November was of negligible significance. Where many 2009 collections disappointed slightly as they reached the limits of possible vintage Oechsle, the Selbach-Oster collection proceeded from strength to profound strength. Most of the wines were bottled in May, but some of the dry and nobly sweet lots were very late even to finish fermenting and a few had not yet been bottled even when I tasted in September. True to an intention he stated last year, Selbach has bottled without Pradikat the fruits of block-pickings from his three top parcels, each named on its label. (For more about the principles involved, consult in particular my note on the 2005 “Schmitt” Auslese – in issue 169 – and that on this year’s dry “Schmitt” Spatlese below.) This year’s collection continues the trend for wines from Zeltingen’s Schlossberg to shine with special complexity and elegance after the many years in which they seemed destined at this address to take a back seat to those of Sonnenuhr. Not only were the vineyards of Zeltingen among the most celebrated on the Mosel during the 19th and early 20th century, but Karl Heinrich Koch epochal survey of 1881 places the Schlossberg as among the Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer’s top 11 sites, and one can appreciate this while savoring a wine like this year’s “Schmitt” trocken.Importers: There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300

The nose of Selbach’s 2007 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese displays heliotrope, musk melon, brown spices, and a nip of botrytis smoke and pungent spice. Persistent spiciness along with bitterness of apple pip informs a long but not especially juicy or refreshing finish. In this instance – a must with botrytis that did not finish fermenting until summer, I wonder whether Selbach would not have done better to have left more residual sugar behind, and whether this would not be best drunk within the coming decade. The Selbach crew did some pre-selection at the end of September, leading directly into a main harvest that lasted until November 10. Johannes Selbach says he often had to find things to keep his crew occupied while waiting for what he judged the optimum moments to pick. After having been through 2006, he was determined to have everything and everybody ready should circumstances suddenly dictate haste, which of course they never did. Selbach was delighted – as a self-proclaimed defender of “true Kabinett” – to have some genuinely light-weight yet intensely-flavored wines this year, and he was the first to acknowledge that not only the prevailing weather but also the abundant crop (even allowing for thinning) helped make ripe-tasting yet relatively low must-weight Riesling possible. He notes that there was relatively little botrytis, and then late. In view of that assessment, I was surprised at the extent to which this year’s Spatlesen evinced evidence of it. As for the dry and nearly-dry wines in this year’s collection, “it’s like a homecoming,” remarks Selbach, “to get back to wines with stuffing but that are sleek, anything but heavy, and inviting of the next sip.”There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel (516) 677-9300.