February 1, 2016 | News | Wines of the Month

2012er Dr. Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling GG Reserve

This Month, we highlight wines of particular elegance from the latest Issue. Few match the elegance of this 2012er effort, one of the best young dry Mosel Riesling ever tasted.

Weingut Dr. Loosen | The Fascinating “GG Reserve” Initiative

Every wine lover of German Riesling knows probably the acronym GG by now, which stands for Grosses Gewächs, a dry Riesling made from Grand Cru vineyards.

As all members of the VDP, the Weingut Dr. Loosen restructured its portfolio along these lines and refocused its top dry Riesling wines around six Grand Cru from its prime vineyards.

Note: We can only encourage any wine lover to read the comprehensive and didactic explanation of the German vineyards classification and GG which we published in the Mosel Fine Wines Issue No 26 (Oct 2014) and which is available to subscribers, free of charge, on simple mail request.

In 2011, Erni Loosen decided to go one step further and return to the winemaking roots of his grandfather, who kept his wines in cask for much longer than is the norm today. Besides his “regular” GGs, he introduced a range of “GG Reserve” wines which he kept in cask for 24 months and a further year in bottle before releasing them commercially.

We already raved about the range of 2011 GG Reserve wines a year ago and featured the 2011er Ürziger Würzgarten GG Reserve as wine of the month at the end of 2014. The 2012 collection is even better, with the 2012er Wehlener Sonnenuhr GG Reserve being simply mind-blowingly good.

What continues to surprise us is that the GG Reserve wines are made from the same fruit as that of the regular GGs. Yet, the additional year in cask gives the Reserve wines more than an additional dimension. It seems to transcend what Mosel wine usually delivers.

Weingut Dr. Loosen | 2012er Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling GG Reserve

The 2012er Sonnenuhr GG Reserve comes from fruit in the prime Laychen (central part of the vineyard, to the right just outside the picture here below) and in Sandpichter (near Zeltingen, just behind the left bridge pier). In these sectors, the Weingut Dr. Loosen still holds possibly century-old un-grafted vines (unfortunately, formal records only started around 1944), yielding small berry fruit.

The wine was fermented with ambient yeasts and aged in traditional cask for 24 months before being bottled in October 2014. It was then left in the bottle for one more year before being commercialized in October 2015.

The finesse of the Wehlener Sonnenuhr shines through this wine, which is elegant and superbly multi-layered. The beauty here lies in the finesse and subtlety and not in power, in line with what Grand Cru from Burgundy would make one expect. This wine captivates one completely. It is simply one of the best young dry Mosel Riesling ever made.

We do look forward to more exciting GG Reserve wines. Let us be very clear: if the 2011-2012 vintages are anything to go by, these GG Reserve wines will set new standards for dry Mosel Riesling. The result is THAT impressive!

A review of the stunning 2012 GG Reserve wines and the 2014 collection by Dr. Loosen was published in Issue No 29 (Oct 2015).
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Tasting Note | Extract from Mosel Fine Wines Issue No 29 (Oct 2015)