Usually the Auslese bracket wines can perplexing when young - not so for the 2022s; as they're already showing sublime balance. Auslese is the step up from Spätlese, with regards to power rather than just sweetness. A bucket of exotic yellow fruits and tea blossoms on the nose. The palate is concentrated like mirabelle jam, opulent yet restrained with a remarkably clean finish.
Auslese wines are made from grapes that have been handpicked according to their ripeness and level of noble rot. The wines are usually sweet and unctuous with great development potential given time in the cellar. Yet the style remains pure and ultra-fine, and while the Spätlese wines shine with juicy intensity, this bracket offers more power, flesh, complexity and length. In terms of food matches, this Auslese still too delicate for sweet desserts (although they can work with light, fruit-based dishes that are not overly sweet). Match them with whatever works for you, but don't overlook its potential with savoury food, it's heavenly match with pork, game birds, savoury tarts, roast chicken, ceviche, sausage, and venison. They are also brilliant with almost all Japanese and Chinese dishes and terrific with a wide range of cheeses.
Situated in the Mosel wine region, along the Mosel River in Germany. This region is renowned for producing some of the best Riesling wines in the world. Zeltinger Sonnenuhr is the most Northern site, directly border Wehlener on its northern border. Similar in aspect and conditions to Wehlener but less topsoil which constitutes lower yields and denser characters from 60-70 year old vines.
It is impossible to describe JJ Prüm wines without mentioning the German Pradikatswein Wine Classifications that indicates the ripeness level of the Riesling grapes. At the Spätlese level, the Prüm wines are still light in body, but the flavour intensity and depth of character go up markedly, and the 2022s deliver a mesmerising balance between elegance, freshness, racy fruit and slate-like minerality. There is considerably more depth of fruit here than in the Kabinett-level wines, although not necessarily more overt sweetness. Instead, it is a question of more flesh, more power and, therefore, wines that can stand up to richer food. Katharina Prüm believes this category is the most versatile at the table - we tend to agree.
To put that into context, the lightest in the German Riesling spectrum is Kabinett (picked at full ripeness), moving on to Spatlese (Late Harvest), Auslese (Select Harvest), Auslese (Select Harvest) Goldkapsel, Auslese (Select Harvest) Lange Goldkapsel, Beerenauslese (Select Berry Harvest), and then the ripest being Trockenbeerenauslese picked as single berries that are almost raisinated by noble rot and selected by hand, further these berries are dried on straw mats further concentrating the sugars and flavour/aroma compounds. Generally speaking, the later the harvest, the longer the wine can live, so Spatlese is more age-worthy than Kabinett, Auslese more so than Spatlese, and so on.
