2015 Wintricher Ohligsberg Spatlese
Market price
Buying options
Tasting notes
Picked at only marginally higher Oechsle than this year’s Goldtröpfchen Kabinett (and significantly less than the corresponding 2014), this reflects Haart’s increasing confidence that Prädikat character does not track with must weight, and a corresponding willingness to strategize vine-grooming and picking with delicacy and merely supportive sweetness as principal aims. “These grapes were green, not gold,” he assured me. A strikingly complex, penetratingly high-toned nose features zesty fresh lime, sloe berry distillate, fennel pollen, lavender and bittersweet iris perfume. The buoyant palate delivers juicy, invigoratingly tart-edged evocations of the aforementioned fruits along with piquantly pit-inflected white peach and cooling, less pungent expression of green herbs, leading to a brightly and hauntingly lingering finish transparent to inner-mouth florality as well as stony and smoky nuances.
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate
David Schildknecht, Vinous
More reviews and scores
Picked at 89° Oechsle (and fermented to 8.17% alcohol plus 73 grams of residual sugar), the 2015 Wintricher Ohligsberg Riesling Spätlese displays ripe, intense and aromatic fruit along with some flinty aromas. On the palate, this is a lush, very intense and piquant Spätlese with mouth-filling fruit, a good grip and lingering salinity. Still a bit astringent and reductive, this 2015 will benefit from 10-15 years in the bottle.