2017 Niederhauser Hermannshohle Spatlese
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Tasting notes
The 2017 Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle Riesling Spätlese combines ripe and noble fruit with delicate crystalline and flinty aromas. Very precise and stimulating. This is significantly finer than the Brücke; it's singing and interwoven with very delicate slate and flinty notes, and it is still fresh and cool despite its ripeness. On the palate, this is a deep, dense and complex, very mineral and tensioned yet always refined and salty-piquant Spätlese with terroir expression and a promising, complex and stimulating finish. Great and sustainable. Tasted in July 2019.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jancis Robinson MW
Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
Lily perfume on the nose of this Hermannshöhle reminds me both of the corresponding 2016 and of this year’s Kirschheck. That is accompanied by ripe, fresh and high-toned, distillate-like notes of pear and quince. The glossy palate is lusciously fruited, billowingly perfumed, as well as seductively glossy and creamy in texture. Piquancy of pear pip and hints of anise add counterpoint, while fresh grapefruit and white peach contribute welcomed bright juiciness en route to a ravishingly-sustained, impeccably-balanced finish. The covering term “mineral” will for now have to serve the strikingly transparent finish, which becomes more intriguing the longer the wine takes on air.
Cask sample. 2016 produced an Auslese from this site, but here the winemaker (Cornelius?) demonstrates that he is not interested in consistency of style, but definition of the vintage. So 2017 was not a vintage of opulence for the Hermannshöhle, but exhilarating freshness, filigree fruit and almost razor-sharp acidity. A wonderful spritz of zesty orange on the finish reaches the part of the palate other Spätlesen can’t get to. (MS)