2015 Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling Kabinett 8 Versteigerung Maximin Grünhaus, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer

Mosel Fine Wines: Harvested at 88° Oechsle, this offers a rather stunning nose of litchi, herbs, cassis and pear. This delivers a stunning mouth-watering even if delicately ripe flavors on the palate and leaves a gloriously racy and intense feel in the long finish. It has the freshness and balance of the great wines of this Estate and the finish is stunningly smooth without any undue feel of residual sugar. This is still backward and searing but make no mistake: This modern day equivalent of the mythical Auslese from the 1990s only needs a little bottle age to shine. What a stunning beauty in the making! 2025-2040. - Aug. 2016

Vinous: There is a long Grünhaus tradition of bottling in some years selected small lots of especially distinctive, usually superior Auslese, B.A. or T.B.A. with their cellar identification numbers emblazoned on the neck labels. Now that this estate will be offering special bottlings at VDP auctions, the 500-liter lot of Kabinett that they chose for that purpose in fall 2016 will also be identified by means of a cask number. White peach, honeydew and Persian melon on the nose announce an advanced state of ripeness vis-à-vis the corresponding “regular” bottling. The palate displays a correspondingly generous fruitiness and complementary silken texture and expansiveness, but the buoyancy, subtle brightness and sheer refreshment of the sustained finish justify the characterization “Kabinett,” at least from today’s perspective. (Before the mid-1990s, a wine like this would unhesitatingly have been bottled as Spätlese.) What I don’t find here are the floral or mineral allure accruing to that non-numbered Abtsberg Kabinett. Nor do I perceive any reason to believe that this lovely “#8” will be any longer-lived; if anything, to the contrary. - David Schildknecht, Mai 2017