Loosen’s 2009 Erdener Pralat Riesling Auslese gold capsule A.P. #45 – an auction lot – offers ultra-concentration of tangerine mingled with honey and caramel, and is as bright and invigorating as it is rich and unctuously textured. The fresh citrus and the botrytis aspects compliment rather than conflicting with one another; and this wine’s superbly long and exhilarating finish even harbors a telltale Mosel hint of wet stone. (While a bottle of this would normally have an auction sticker attached to it, I can’t otherwise see how someone could tell whether the gold capsule on an isolated bottle of Loosen Pralat was “l(fā)ong,” so I have appended the wine’s A.P.# for safety’s sake.) “I want real Kabinetts,” says Ernst Loosen by way of explaining his early start on the 2009 harvest, “between 80 and 83 Oechsle, with crisp acidity, freshness, and the like; and you can’t wait around, especially when you have five, maybe seven days of Kabinett-picking to do and every day ripeness is rising. This year, we wanted to delineate even more sharply the difference between Kabinett and Spatlese, as well as a distinct difference between Spatlese and Auslese.” In practical terms, this meant among other things slightly reducing the levels of residual sugar in the Kabinetts (Loosen says that trend will continue incrementally); and reserving botrytis fruit solely for wines labeled “Auslese.” Eiswein from Lay, Treppchen, and Sonnenuhr; Eiswein and T.B.A. from Pralat; as well as a T.B.A. from Wurzgarten were all – according to cellarmaster Bernhard Schug – in various states of fermentation or preparation for bottling when I visited in September, so consequently I shall review those wines (or at least some subset thereof) at such time as I report on the 2010 vintage.Importer: Loosen Brothers, Portland, OR tel. (510) 864-7255