2004 Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Auslese

The nose of the 2004 Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Auslese A.P. #14 is tinged by whiffs of primary yeastiness, CO2, and SO2, but it responds well to a good shaking and begins to pour forth aromas of spiced green apple, blackberry, kiwi, honey, flowers, and a hint of white raisin. The wine bursts onto the palate with juicy fruit intensity, abundant spice, fruit skin pungency, and wet slate and salty minerality, leading to a long, eloquently thirst-quenching and lip-smackingly intense finish of apple, kiwi, black currant, flowers, and honey. This wine also exhibits a flattering, subtle sense of oiliness of texture. Look for some short term gain in clarity and then – based on a long-standing track record at this estate – two or more decades satisfying development in bottle. There tend to be multiple Prum bottlings of a given combinations of site and Pradikat, but I am never privy to an overview of these. To sin on the side of safety, I have noted the A.P. # for wines I tasted from bottle, but Manfred Prum routinely seeks to assure me that any alternate bottlings will not differ substantially from those I have tasted, and consistent excellence – like ageworthiness – has long been a hallmark of Joh. Jos. Prum Rieslings. Picking this year – until the middle of December – culminated in Eiswein harvests several days earlier than the vast majority of those essayed in 2004. I did not have opportunity to taste the embryonic results of those pickings, nor did I taste Prum’s 2004s from Bernkastel and Zeltingen sites. Various importers including: P. J. Valckenberg International, Tulsa, OK; tel. (918) 622-0424 and Rudi Wiest, Cellars International, Carlsbad, CA; tel. (800) 596-9463.