2011 Riesling Kabinett

Well, it's certainly Prüm by the nose – sulphuric and aggressive. There's a lovely soft fruitiness to the palate, but I find the nose impenetrable. Needs time above all. (RH)

From a mixture of Bernkastel and Graach sites plus a bit of Wehlen, the generic Prum 2011 Riesling Kabinett displays aromas already way above its station in complexity, featuring penetrating and metaphorically cooling scents of spearmint, apple blossom, fresh apple, cherry and lime, all of which – along with lusciously-dripping honeydew melon – then figure on a delicately refreshing, subtly spritzy palate that finishes with mouthwatering juiciness and impeccably-integrated, entirely discreet residual sugar. This fine value – whose May bottling, incidentally, was the estate’s first – will deliver delightful satisfaction for at least a dozen years. Katharina Prum says her team did an extensive pre-harvest culling of negatively botrytized material in September, “but it was the beginning of October before you had the ripeness to harvest a good Kabinett.” And the Prums were very happy – over and beyond the no doubt more conspicuous successes that this vintage brought them, including the results of sparse late botrytis – to have been able to bottle a full range of Kabinetts in decent quantity; indeed, there’s marginally more Kabinett than Spatlese, something that would have been taken for granted here 25 or more years ago but is today rare. And what quality and value – not to mention age-ability – these Kabinetts offer! Relatively low – upper 20s or low 30s – residual sugar in them has meant reaching 9-9.5% alcohol, but I defy anyone to charge them with lack of delicacy. “This balance is intentionally what we’re tending toward now,” explains Prum. “Since we don’t make any trocken wines, this is our notion of a light, dry Mosel Riesling. But that doesn’t mean we did any calculations or often had to intervene. For the most part, the wines simply found their own balance.” This year’s collection at Uferalle 19 is happily notable also for wines that are nearly all frank and forthcoming, with little of the interference from fermentative afterbirth or sulfur byproducts that one must often accept early-on in the life of a vintage at this address. And, curiously, the wines from Wehlener Sonnenuhr, rather than being the most backward, were atypically open last September. It goes without saying given their long track record that these are, in general, wines to cellar long-term – even the Kabinetts among them – but you will certainly not be disappointed if you can’t restrain yourself from opening some Prum 2011s today! (As frequently explained in the context of my reviews of these wines, I am not always privy to the A.P. numbers of the bottles I sample at Joh. Jos. Prum and the family prides themselves on consistency between different but – save for their registration numbers – identically-labeled bottlings. That said, in instances where there are several otherwise eponymous 2011 bottlings and the wine in question is iconic and beloved of Riesling collectors – such as a Wehlener Spatlese or Auslese – I take the opportunity to, in this instance, supply the registration number of the bottling that I tasted.) Various importers including: P. J. Valckenberg International, Tulsa, OK; tel. (918) 622-0424 and Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. (800) 596-9463

A little smoky and a lot stony all entwined with a spark of lime fruit. Fabulous tension, coiled spring but also elegant and refined. Really crisp and zesty but there's sophistication too and excellent length. (JH)