TNs: JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr tasting

A small group of JJ Prum devotees gathered last month in Boston’s Chinatown to eat some delicious food and drink over 20 bottles of Prum’s Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling. It was a really educational tasting and just underscored how consistently excellent this producer is in producing world-class Riesling from this vineyard site.

None of the wines were served blind. I did jot down AP numbers for those who might be keeping score at home.

Kabinett:

1999 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett. AP#4. This first wine of the evening presents a rather pretty and comparatively loose-knit bouquet featuring airy aromas of white peach, honeysuckle, white flowers, talcum powder and blue slate shot through with occasional notes of more tropical fruit scents. In the mouth, it is gentle, lacy and definitely open for business—with nice flavors of peach and nectarine fruit surrounded by a soft inner mouth perfume of white flowers. It doesn’t have the concentration level of many of the other wines, but I find a lot to like here in this lighter-styled vintage.

2002 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett. AP#28. This wine is a whole lot more tightly-coiled than the previous offering—with taut aromas of limestone, schist, peaches and herbs seeming to need more time in the cellar to unfold. On the palate, it comes across as a rather serious wine—with a lot of depth, structure and density of flavor. I taste grapefruit and pineapple mostly, along with some maraschino cherry and peachy flavors—all done in a limpid yet very well-structured fashion. It is a tad pasty at times, but has a very long and persistent finish. It will benefit from a few more years and go a long while, I suspect.

1998 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett. AP#6. This comes across as the fattest and darkest-fruited bouquet of the four kabinetts in this flight—pushing out aromas of smoky peaches, butterscotch, lemon sourball candies and dark honey. It is fairly viscous in texture, feeling kind of thick-legged at times, but at the same time it is very aggressive with the acidity and features some high-toned flavors throughout. The dark, mouth-filling fruit really sticks to the enamel of the teeth and makes this wine seem less pretty and more beefy than its counterparts. It also leaves a slightly sweeter impression on the palate.

2001 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett. AP#26. There’s a fair bit of spritzy bubbles coating the inside of the glass here, but they don’t really have any impact and the wine is just lovely all around. There’s a good deal of minerality showing through right from the start, along with a bit of sulfur and smoke. Otherwise it is all nicely-focused and elegant aromas of lemon peel, yellow chalk dust, graphite and a tickle of lemon seltzer. In the mouth, it is just packed with goodness—showing great flavor intensity, pitch-perfect acidity, classy structure, a fair dose of glycerin and a lovely textural mouthfeel. It puts forth a great effort and rewards the palate accordingly with its generous flavors of pineapple, peach, grapefruit, cherry, slate and so much more. Great wine.

For my tastes, the 2001 was the easy winner of this flight, followed by that light and friendly 1999. The 2002 needs more time and the 1998 just wasn’t as fine the others. Overall, I liked the Kabinett flight—in no way did they seem like lesser wines or entry-level wines or anything like that. They were full of personality and each had its own unique character.

Intermission #1:

N.V. Veuve Fourny et Fils Champagne Brut 1er Cru Grande Reserve. I find there to be tons and tons of struck match, sulfur and flint on the nose of this wine—slowly yielding to orange peel, pear and green apple aromas. In the mouth, it is extremely bubbly and vibrant, really filling the mouth with foamy sensations of minerals, smoke, flint, sea foam and crisp apples. It is crunchy and etched—very cleansing and refreshing but a tad austere, too.

Spatlese:

1996 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese. AP#8. This was my favorite wine in the flight and probably my third-favorite wine of the night. It offers up a plush and deeply sexy bouquet of poached pears, peaches, yellow apple, baking spices, light brown sugar and flowers—with a late kerosene note running underneath. In the mouth, it is really singing right now! There’s elevated sweetness to the beautiful yellow fruit, but also outstanding acidity and nice cool slate notes in there to keep it finely-balanced. It has wonderful length and a rather persistent finishing kick—a complete wine.

1998 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese. CORKED.

2004 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese. AP#13. Compared to the previous wine this is a much lighter color and the nose is not nearly as complex at this time—offering only some pretty glimpses of lemon tea and yellow pixie stick aromas. In the mouth, though, it shows off a fair bit more of its pleasures. The sweetness is still a bit sugary, perhaps, but there are also some rather nice fruit flavors of peach, kiwi, assorted citrus and tropical components. The texture is pure and lush and there are hints of some tight structural edges from time to time. The finish is a bit unformed at this time, but one can certainly see some longer-range promise here.

2001 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese. AP#27. Like the 2001 Kabinett, this wine shows a lot of fine spritz bubbles clinging to the inside of the glass. It shows off a very strong aromatic streak of slate tiles and struck flint that I like a lot. It also features classy aromas of lemon oil, lanolin and herbal tones that grow and elongate nicely with time and air. It is still a bit young, but really showing some early appeal. On the palate is where this wine really shows its mettle—just kicking out the jams. It comes across as seamless, grippy, driven and finely-balanced. It has great concentration of pure peach, apricot, cherry and pineapple flavors carried along with gentle sweetness and a quietly chiseled backbone. It has a lot going on with fine bass notes and airier overtones that I really like. This was just behind the 1996 for me in terms of drinking right now, but will quite likely be the greater wine down the road. It would be hard to wait, though, if I had any in my cellar.

2005 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese. AP#12. Youthful aromas of peach, chalk, lemon-lime, cane sugar, crushed seashells and orange peel are the order of the day for the nose of this wine. In the mouth, it is the sweetest wine in the flight and by a good margin. It comes across as the most primary and obvious—with a lot of glycerin contributing to the smooth, languid texture. Flavors of kiwi, lime and yellow tropical fruits are lush and full, but could benefit from more overt structure and acidity. It is hard to say how well this will age, but it should certainly benefit from short and medium-term cellaring.

Two of my favorite wines of the tasting were the 1996 and 2001 Spatlese—those are complete wines and wonderful to drink right now. Still, I wouldn’t hesitate to age either one, as they both have perfect balance and excellent structure to go along with their delicious fruit.

Intermission #2:

1996 Paul Jaboulet Aine Hermitage La Chapelle. There are a lot of different aromas coming out of the glass with this wine, but they are kind of shy and not quite as expressive as one might hope. Still, there is some nascent complexity to be sensed here in the aromas of dried cherries, plums, damson, licorice rope, bricks, animal fur, saddle leather, toasted herbs, dry earth and raw meat. Give it some time, I think. On the palate, it is young, chewy and kind of dour in an over-serious sort of way—not really a whole lot of fun to drink at this stage. Part of that could be that there are abundant and obviously grippy tannins that are in play right from the very start. Otherwise, one encounters some baked cherry, tanned leather, smoked meat and bacon fat flavors that are quite earthy in tone. The acidity is a tad astringent at the very end, but there is enough good stuffing here, I think, to merit some patience with this wine.

1999 Domaine Jamet Cote-Rotie. What an amazingly wild and feral bouquet this wine puts forth—absolutely redolent of animal fur, hickory-cured bacon, dried blood, iron filing, black olive and forest underbrush aromas tinged with a bit of old world merdre. It is extremely distinctive and I really enjoy it a lot, but I could easily see it being too much for a lot of folks. In the mouth, it is again about as wild and animalistic a wine as you could hope to encounter, with the smoked cherry fruit way in the background and elements of dried blood, beef stock, hung game, hickory smoke and leather leading the way. With time in the glass, some chunky tannins do start to rear up, so my advice is to give this old-fashioned and unique wine a bit more time to tame down (though it is a fun ride in many ways right now, even with the decanting it was given).

2001 Domaine du Tunnel (Stephane Robert) Cornas Cuvee Prestige. This wine was tough to drink for me. Blasting up out of the glass are all kinds of toasted stem, menthol, wintergreen, black leather, black tea leaf, tire rubber, creosote, black olive juice and burning leaf pile aromas that are so astringent as to almost make me feel like I’m in the middle of a burning building. In the mouth, it is the same story. I taste only smoky peat, rubber, burnt stem, leather, hickory smoke and blackberry. The texture of the wine is just fine, but it is so acidic and so smoky that I can’t really enjoy it. Maybe try again in 10 years?

1995 Bodegas y Vinedos Alion Ribera del Duero. Like the Jamet, this was decanted when we first sat down. And then I held it in my glass for a while (I actually drank it after the next flight, but I kept my note here as pretty much everybody else drank it at this time). I like the aromatic notes of black cherries, strawberry licorice rope, old leather, meat, smoke, pencil shavings, mincemeat and iron ore. In the mouth, it presents a nice earthy streak of moss, birch and dark earth tones to go with the black cherry and red fruit flavors. It feels kind of dense and dark at times, but then will remind you of its crunchy acidic backbone at other times. On day 2, it actually seemed more giving and fresher-toned.

Auslese:

1983 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. AP#6. The cork itself smells horribly tainted, but the aromatics of the wine actually seem fine. In fact, all I sense are beautiful aromas of sweet apricot, nectarine, kiwi, clover honey, star anise and corn silk—shot through with a vein of airier petrol fume from time to time. It hits the palate with a very nice flavor profile of nectarine, apricot, toasted orange peel, blue slate and exotic honey, but unfortunately it seems to consistently pull up short on the back of the palate and quickly fade on the finish. It is too bad, because that initial shot of vibrant flavor and viscous texture is so enticing—and then it is just sort of yanked out from under you. I guess that is quite likely the TCA’s signature, sadly.

1985 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. AP#12. One encounters a rich but somewhat volatile and varnished nose here–full of apricot, botrytis spices, wax candy and sweet peach juice aromas that have an unusually dark and toasty tone to them. It is also more burnished in tone on the palate, but after an initial sliver of nail polish remover fumes that mostly fade over time, the wine just kicks into another gear and provides a lot of pleasure. One encounters intense peach, vanilla, plum and apricot jam flavors that are abundantly spiced and rather creamy-textured. It has excellent length and solid acidity, coming across as very well-balanced and giving—albeit in that darker-toned and darkly-spiced profile.

1995 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. AP#8. This is quite simply a gorgeous wine. The exotic and giving aromas of waxy paraffin, lemon zest, lemon sourball, rich honey, apricot jelly and yellow chalk dust just waft out of the glass and envelop the nose in delight. In the mouth, it is utterly full-blown, exotic and densely-concentrated. It is full of wonderful yellow citrus and tree fruit flavors that grab your attention right from the start and just never let go. Individual notes of lemon, star fruit, peach, pear, blue slate and petrol exhibit just the right levels of sweetness and acidic balance. It is a wine of intensity and drive but also great grip and edging. My wine of the night.

1997 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. AP#2. This is by far the lightest-colored wine of the 1995/1997/1998 trio. It shows off light and airy but sharply-defined aromas of lanolin, petrol, lime and lemon peel shot through with bits of mica and graphite. In the mouth, it is almost crisp in comparison to some of the other wines in this flight. There is a lot more orchard fruit notes in this wine and less overt sweetness, for sure—delivering more in the flavor spectrum of light brown sugar, apple juice and minerals. Still, it fills the mouth nicely, just in an airier and not as densely rich fashion. Perhaps not surprisingly, I think this did rather well with the food.

1998 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. AP#7. The nose here is darker and woodsier than others—with aromas of baked apricots and plums, baking spices and dark earth coming across as a bit thick-ankled and muddled at times (a trait I think it shares with the 1998 kabinett). It is much more expressive on the palate, even though it is kind of heavy-bottomed and dense and a bit more obvious than the others drank alongside it. Indeed, it is rather voluminous and loaded with luscious body and sweet exotic orange, baked apricot and pineapple sweetness. For those who like it big, rich, exotic and dark, this will be right up your alley.

1999 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. AP#14. In as much as the 1998 auslese mirrors some of the aromatic qualities of the kabinett, the 1999 is even more akin to its lower pradikat in personality. First of all, it is even lighter-colored than the 1997 and has a rather airy and fresh nose of lime zest, grapefruit, graphite and cedar shavings aromas. In the mouth, it feels fresh and tensile on the entry, with pretty and sweet flavors of lime, pineapple and other citrus zest sorts of flavors accented by a floral inner mouth perfume that is rather appealing. It has nice balance and pleasing freshness, with an easy zesty quality to it. It is not as meaty as some others, but still long and luscious. Man, I could easily drink a lot of this before I realized what I was doing!

2001 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. AP#28. This is wonderfully complex stuff on the nose—loaded with graphite, schist, flint, lime, prickle pear, poached apple and pear aromas contending occasionally with little whiffs of sulfur. It shows a great combination of racy minerality and gorgeously sweet fruit that I really like. In the mouth, it is a tad spritzy but again just pitch-perfect in its focus, intensity, balance and drive. Slate, lime, kiwi, peach and apricot flavors have great tension and gorgeous sweetness. Just a fantastic wine all around.

1990 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese. AP#2. Served from 375 ml bottle. For some reason, I heard a fair bit of dissing of this wine going on around the table before I got to it. But I personally find quite nice aromas of nutmeg, allspice, chutney and apricot jam underpinned by cooler notes of slate. On the palate, some were calling it watery or hollow, but I just thought it was lighter than and not quite as lengthy as some of the others in the flight. I still very much enjoyed the gentle and open texture that accompanies the peach and tropical fruit flavors. I agree it doesn’t have the distinctiveness, cut or energy of several others, but it still tastes nice to me.

There were some great wines in this flight, no doubt. The 1995 was my favorite wine of the whole tasting, but the 2001 in this flight was fantastic, as well. The older wines were a real treat to drink, still holding a lot of rich fruit and fun spices but a tad uneven here and there. What I really liked was just how different and unique each and every vintage comes across.

Auslese Goldkapsel:

1995 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel. AP#18. Much more so than the 1995 auslese, this wine really smells late harvest in nature—redolent of nutmeg, mace, rich honey, Christmas ribbon candy and lush yellow fruit. In the mouth, the first thing my notes mention are that it just seems pristine and pure and direct—rich but perfectly balanced. It is giving, lush and juicy-fruited, but with a whole lot of verve and zest. It may not have quite the depth or length of some of the other wines, but there is a lot of vivacity and fun tanginess riding atop languid fruit that make this extremely enjoyable.

1997 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel. AP#31. Somehow I managed to miss this wine.

2002 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel. AP#31. This wine is young but already pretty generous with its aromas of peach fuzz, lemon peel, lime, talc and flowers. I like the profile but it surely seems like it will have even more to give down the road a ways. I’m also rather impressed with this on the palate—showing as it does such outstanding balance, poise, seamless texture and pure sweetness to the kiwi, lime, nectarine and tangy tropical fruit flavors. It is actually kind of oily in texture and seemingly quite layered at this young age, with a long and impressive finish.

1998 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel. AP#13. Maybe it was just late in the night, but looking back at my notes all I read are descriptions associated with petroleum—leading with aromas of kerosene, paraffin and petrol to go along with lemon peel. And in the mouth, the inner mouth still seems to reek of petroleum character, along with very strong notes of slate and flint, apricots and peaches. It wasn’t one of my favorites.

2001 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel. AP#22. On the other hand, this could easily have been my WOTN, though I ended up calling it my second-favorite. It leads off with fantastic yet coolly-refined and controlled aromas of sweet tropical fruits, chalk, graphite, kerosene and apricot that are clearly still in their infancy but already starting to deliver the goods. In the mouth, it is simply sublime. It is giving, dense, rich and wonderfully deeply-flavored, yet tingly and zesty and full of tension—I felt myself actually sitting up at attention once this hit my taste buds. I love the languid sense of rich sweetness allied to the tangy feel of the lime, poached pear, peach and mineral flavors. It is just pitch-perfect with nary a hair out of place. It demonstrates total control of itself and just flows effortlessly through to the impressively persistent finish.

These auslese goldkapsels are something else. For a while, I wasn’t sure they were worth paying the extra premium above and beyond the auslese bottles—I mean how much better do you want a wine to be than some of these auslese offerings? But for the true geek, they do seem to deliver just that much more—not in sweetness or volume necessarily, but just in the power allied to balance equation. But at the end of the day, the honest truth is that one can find enjoyment in these Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr bottlings up and down the pradikat scale, almost without fail. It seems about as safe a bet as one could make in the world of fine wine.

And a final word on vintages. 2001 stole the show for me—a vintage that can be enjoyed now but ought to age effortlessly for years to come. The 2002s seem too young right now and probably ought to be held a while longer. 1999 seems light but pure–excellent for current drinking. I struggled with a few of the 1998’s—finding them less racy and generally darker in tone than most other vintages. Keep in mind that I do not follow German vintage variances closely, so I imagine I’ll hear about it from some who may find my characterizations amateurish. All I know is that after 20+ bottles of wine from a single vineyard and single producer, clear and consistent differences were apparent across these wines from vintage to vintage—saying to me that this is a site and a producer where the terroir just shines through bright and clear. I was duly impressed.


-Michael

Serious stuff here. A couple of weeks ago, one of the flights was Gracher 2006 white and gold. Gold far sweeter but lacking the searing precision of the white. I think one of the few flights, where there was general agreement.

Oh HELL yes, Michael! Great, great tasting. Shame re that '83. Also a little surprised re the '90 – think the small format might have played a role?

Mark, I thought the GHs in '06 were pretty tropical – delicious but not going anywhere, probably. Didn’t try the GKA, though.

Hi Michael,

That Tunnel was flawed. I have had a ton from 1999 onwards including some '01s recently. They are more new world in style but never has one shown acidic like you describe. In fact I have no idea where those flavors came from :slight_smile:

All those Prums sound great. I went to a small tasting last week where their reps swears the sulphur we sense in Prum’s wines is really due to native yeasts in his cellar, not sulphur additions. I like to argue and did but we agreed to disagree.

Matt, I honesty am not sure about the small format possibly having affected the 1990 auslese–but I tend to agree that it likely didn’t help.

John, everything I’d read about Tunnel was about it being more new world styled, but my first experience with the producer that night never really allowed me to get that far in my evaluation. I’ll be sure to try other bottles before I make any longer-term judgments (always looking for a reason to experiment with more wines!). Thanks for the insight.

-Michael

A great tasting from a truly world class site in the hands of a master.

I have been holding off on my 2001’s with huge expectations down the road.

Incredible tasting and notes, thanks for taking the time to share this.

Looks great, I will return to this when I get back to my Prum cellar! :slight_smile: