1997 Prager Riesling Weissenkirchen Klaus Smaragd

Nose of ripest apricot and diverse flowers. Voluminous and gripping, searching, probing. Finishes with invasively intense dried lemon, apricot and bitter nuttiness. This is about as powerful as riesling ever gets. The soil here is Paragneiss-i.e. a sedimentation and recementing of pure volcanic Urgneiss such as one finds in Achleiten. Why should this matter? Because roots more easily penetrate and water is more easily retained in the paragneiss, hence the typical weight and fullness of the wine, with a slight trade-off in sheer finesse.