2016 Brunnenhauschen Riesling Grosses Gewachs

The 2016 Brunnenhäuschen Riesling GG is intense, ripe, pure and salty on the nose, very deep and elegant with ripe fruit and spicy/salty aromas. On the palate, this is a full-bodied, fresh, finessed and salty dry Riesling with power and grip but also purity, finesse and a lingering salinity intertwined with fine tannins. This is full-bodied, rich and pure Riesling with excellent aging potential.

As usual, not only is this wine more ingratiating, generously juicy and alluringly multifaceted – in short, it’s got charm – than are Wittmann’s bottlings from the Aulerde, Morstein or Kirchspiel, but it also opens with hauntingly bittersweet thyme-, iris- and gentian-like floral notes such as I also associate with his La Borne. Ripe white peach adds to the aromatic appeal and forms the basis for a luscious, silken, glycerol-rich yet buoyant palate. An aura of chalkiness runs all the way through this performance but evinces no sense of adamancy or grit. Peach pit piquancy adds invigorating counterpoint and glow without becoming outright bitter. The strikingly transparent, herbally and florally nuanced finish introduces a wave of saliva-liberating marine mineral salts along with smoke and iodine notes suggestive of mouthwateringly savory toasted shrimp shells.

A truly Grosses Gewächs will never be purely based on fruit, but there is no harm in opening the performance with an enticing fragrance of peach, apricot and citrus fruit. A dusty notion indicates that minerality will play its part too. As soon as the wine hits the palate the fruity pleasantries become just a side show to the main mineral performance. Rock solid, taut, powerful, the Brunnenhäuschen is as much about structure and finesse, as it is about complexity of flavour with its wide array of stony, spicy herbal and fruity nuances. (MS)