Warning: once you taste this auslese, sautenes will never be the same again.
The Wolfshöhle is a south-exposed field with lethal gradients located in a side valley to the Rhine near Bacharach. It consists of finely divided Devonian shale, which in some places has inclusions of quartz crystals. The wines from here are particularly reminiscent of the wines from Mittel-Mosel, and the subsoil is also the same Hunsrück massif that dominates the Mosel.
2019 is a superlative vintage with excellent focus, rich fruit and a laser-cut acidity. Here, there is both lightness and intensity, which is due to the special combination of a high must weight and an excellent acidity. A significant proportion of the grapes in the vintage were marked by botrytis, but in a very pure form, so the wine combines fatness and intensity with tremendous clarity.
Aroma and taste are an intense study in peach, quince, lime, Alphonso mango and pronounced salty minerals: all held together by an electric acidity that maintains a razor-sharp focus. The taste has fullness and great concentration, but the acid still leaves the mouth refreshed and the mouth watering at the highest level. Well, this is a sweet wine, but it nevertheless appears weightless and drinkable. This cannot be done anywhere else in the world.
Storage potential: somewhere between large and enormous.
This bottle contains 50 cl.
94 points Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate
“The intensely yellow colored 2019 Bacharacher Wolfshöhle Riesling Auslese opens with an intense and savory, slightly saline yet still reductive nose of ripe and lush tropical fruit aromas intertwined with notes of broken slate and ripe, stewed and dried apricots. Round and lush as well as savory on the palate, this is a mouth-filling, rich yet precise and vibrantly fresh Auslese from an excellent vintage for this style of Riesling”.
94 points vinous.com (David Schildknecht)
“Picked from within the best portion of old vines that otherwise informs the Wolfshöhle Grosses Gewächs, this Auslese is more Beerenauslese-like in its sheer concentration and expression of noble botrytis. Quince and mirabelle jellies are laced with lychee and salted caramel on a ravishing nose and a seductively silken, delicate palate. Cooling green herbal essences well up on a mouthwateringly salt tinged, at once soothing and stimulating finish of sensational persistence.”
