2016 Peter Jakob Kühn Riesling Landgeflecht

“In the case of Landgeflecht,” noted Kühn, “I gave the 2016 version a bit less time on the full lees [than had been the case with 2015] so as to preserve freshness, elegance and refinement,” All of that is indeed preserved, along with a sense of openness and an intricacy of mineral impingement that contrast with the almost implosive sense of concentration and mineral suffusion that characterize Kühn’s vintage 2017 Grosse Gewächse. The nose delivers hauntingly bittersweet floral perfume, green herbs, almond extract, and pit-inflected white peach to the accompaniment of stone, oyster flesh and mineral salts that translate into crystalline impingement and umami on a glycerol-rich and (for a wine of around 13% alcohol) uncannily buoyant palate. The soaring finish delivers a vibrant interaction of fruit and flowers with a raw-oyster-like combination of meaty savor, herbal richness and mouthwatering mineral nuances. What a culmination to this estate’s superb collection from the challenging but potentially so rewarding 2016 vintage! It’s another instance where I imagine how some of the great dry Rieslings of the early 20th (or occasionally even the late 19th) century that I have been privileged to taste might have shown in their youth.