Picked out in just two days at the beginning of November from numerous parcels, the Fritz Haag 2008 Braunebeger Juffer Riesling Auslese displays peach, musk melon, and grilled pineapple, with a subtle overlay of caramel. Luscious and oily in texture yet persistently refreshing, its saline accents serve for contrast and invigoration. This finishes with outstanding length and purity, and if it lacks quite the textural allure or uncanny levity of this year’s Spatlesen, it nevertheless causes me to salivate uncontrollably in anticipation (hope) of the next positively refreshing sip. “This had virtually no botrytis,” explains Oliver Haag, “but it was so ripe and had such a distinctive personality that I thought I couldn’t bottle it as Spatlese. In comparison with our more opulent, creamy Juffer-Sonnenuhr Sonnenuhr Auslesen, this (Juffer) is more the classic Auslese as we knew it ten or twenty years ago.” I would count on its being delightful for 30 years. Oliver Haag began picking already before the mid-point of October, but the results testify to his having had fully ripe grapes. “We did a lot of leaf-pulling and an extensive pre-harvest thinning this year,” he points out, adding that “the Auslesen were picked largely at the end of October, not too late. One picking was intended for Beerenauslese, but it didn’t appeal to me for that character, considering what good wines we have had in recent years, so I declassified that fruit into gold capsule Auslese.” Haag has this year dropped the Pradikat designations from all of his dry-tasting wines (and “Juffer” from what used to be "Juffer Kabinett"), while bottled his Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr-Sonnenuhr trocken as Grosses Gewachs. The idea is not only to simplify and to create a convention that non-Pradikat wines taste dry or nearly-so, but also to return to something more like the labeling that prevailed before 1971. But putting the words “Erste Lage” on the label of wines from the Sonnenuhr – in keeping with a VDP-wide program – actually adds further impetus to fatuous consumer questions. As all close students and lovers of Burgundy know, the words “premier cru” on a label mean increasingly little, and the best sites or portions of sites nowadays achieve their price and due reverence regardless of whether the label indicates “premier cru.” Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. 800 596 9463.

Crunchy and refreshing, like a cascade of citrus and rocks across the palate, with a hint of green apple thrown in. This is all allied to a tensile, linear frame. Ends with a mouthwatering impression. Best from 2014 through 2030. 40 cases made.??–BS??Region: Germany / Mosel Select to Add