Based on 100% botrytis berries that were handpicked raisin by raisin, the intensely golden-yellow colored 2017 Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese #18 is even more intense, deep and aromatic than the Juffer TBA. The nose is highly concentrated yet refined and spicy, with its peach, tea, oak leaves (there was no oak at all in the making!) and even salty algae aromas, leading to a rich, intense and concentrated yet fresh, crystalline and structured palate with gorgeously lush yet highly finessed and elegant fruit. The acidity is super refined and cuts through the dense flesh like a new Japanese knife. This is a legend, and still, our grandchildren should sing a hymn on it when they are old. I'd give it even 101 points if I could. Tasted in March and April 2019.

The golden-yellow 2015 Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese is very clear, fresh and piquant on the nose, with perfectly ripe and concentrated stone fruit aromas. On the palate, this is a gorgeously intense, lush and rich TBA with a mouth-watering finesse and elegance. Sweet and concentrated but enormously digestible, this is beautifully balanced and sensual TBA that is not yet in the market. Oliver Haag hasn't yet decided what to do with it, but readers should fear it will be auctioned one day—"in ten or so years," Oliver Haag says.

From tank, the enormously viscous Fritz Haag 2011 Braunebeger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese superficially – which isn’t to say without giving enormous pleasure – evinces apple jelly and apricot preserves. As with the corresponding B.A., there is, moreover, a concentration of myriad floral and herbal essences for which an allusion to Chartreuse can scarcely do justice. Nougat, marzipan, and myriad honeys as well as juicy citrus add further layers to the rich, interactive narrative here, yet for all of its confectionary leanings, this T.B.A. displays uncanny, almost weightless levity allied to electric vibrancy, ringing my palate like a tuning fork. Riesling can’t get much more spine-tingling than this, nor, I suspect, harbor any greater aging potential. (There is also a Juffer T.B.A. but although it was the lighter of these two in must weight, it was still fermenting when I visited the estate last September.) “We started picking at the beginning of October,” relates Oliver Haag “because must weights were already high for Kabinett, but there was good acidity.” Haag pressed whole clusters rather than either crushing or permitting skin contact for his dry wines, and tended to favor a higher percentage of stainless steel for vinification and elevage because, as he puts it, “the material was all so ripe that I was worried it would come off as too opulent and voluminous.” Without question, he thereby puts his finger on a legitimate concern, and his own wines illustrate the truth that higher alcoholic volume and opulence – no matter what appears on the Riesling’s label – aren’t necessarily virtues, and in particular not in the context of this vintage. “To convey a sense of levity this year,” notes Haag, “was not so easy. Not that there was much botrytis out there,” he adds, though fortunately that fact did not deter him from rendering several spectacular ennobled wines in small volumes. Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. (800) 596-9463

Destined at some point for auction, the 75 liters of Fritz Haag 2009 Braunebeger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese present a semi-tropical effusion of peach preserves, papaya, and pink grapefruit, all slathered in honey and overlain by wood smoke and truffle. As noted in a couple of other instances in the present collection, there is greater opulence but also more prominent – or at least, a more detached sense of – acidity than in the corresponding Juffer, while the latter displays greater levity and poise. Still, there is overwhelming richness and amazing persistence to the flavors here simultaneous with intense citricity; and yet more awe-inspiring than today’s performance is the thought that this will surely display even greater complexity and more refined comportment over the course of its next half century or so. “You had to wait to pick,” comments Oliver Haag picked, “but not too late. Because after the end of October we had more rain, and by then the stems weren’t just ripe but just about shot (fertig), so that the grapes were literally hanging by a thin thread.” Different degrees of double-salt de-acidification were essayed (always on must), frequently only on certain lots of an eventual blend; but of the unabashedly residually sweet bottlings, Haag insists that only the Kabinett reflected a significant degree of de-acidification. Haag in my view quite correctly characterizes his generic bottlings as most illustrative of the vintage’s challenges and his selectively-picked residually sweet wines as being above-average ... “average” at this address, of course, having over the past several decades designated a very high quality indeed. “There were a lot of tough decisions to be made this year,” he relates. “Should we harvest this parcel or that? Pick now or later?” I share Haag’s opinion that as a group these wines will need longer than usual in bottle to really show their stuff. Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. ( 800) 596-9463

The Haags’ 2007 Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Trockenbeerenauslese – destined to be sold off of their regular price list, not at auction – had not yet been bottled and was under the influence of recent sulfuring when I tasted it last September. Even so, this wine was explosively concentrated, loaded with peach preserves, brown spices, nougat, marzipan, and white raisin. Seldom, in fact, can I recall a Riesling remotely this much like nut confection. The lift and near weightlessness of which the best wines of the vintage are capable is dramatically displayed here. Yet the finish offers a greater sense of grip – along with the stimulation of orange and pink grapefruit zest, tactile cinnamon spice, and subtly chewy peach skin – than the wine’s creamy, levitating palate performance or nut paste character would have led me to anticipate. Intriguing and in its way invigorating as this elixir might be, ultimately the wonder of it will simply bring you to reverie. Needless to say this is one for the ages. Oliver and Wilhelm Haag have done it again, scoring consistent and sensational success throughout their range. And if 2007 cannot – like 2006 – be compared with any iconic vintage of yore (in 2006’s case, 1953) so much the more exciting. Importer: Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. 800 596 9463.