A.J. Adam Dhroner Hofberg Riesling Spatlese 2015

“Scents of lime and pineapple anticipate the tangy, brash fruit presence on a firm-textured but glycerol-rich palate. Maritime salinity and crystalline stoniness make for a mouthwatering and shimmeringly complex finish whose penetrating intensity reflects the wines nearly ll grams of acidity. This bottling comes from an ungrafted 1953 planting. Drinking window: 2017-2038. 92 points

“It was not a bad vintage,” said Andreas Adam with obvious understatement. “But one had to be careful,” he added earnestly, “or the must weights could get ahead of you and then honest Kabinett would not have been possible.” Accordingly, he began his 2015 harvest on September 29 so as to capture freshness and levity, and was finished on October 22. His latest collection underscores this young vintner’s mastery of wines with efficacious but discreet sweetness such as sadly few German Riesling growers render in significant numbers outside the Saar (where one thinks immediately of Lauer and Loch), and especially not in 2015 (when, for example, Adam’s friend and regular collaborateur Julian Haart bottled wines either legally dry or overtly sweet). Unfortunately, Adam didn’t reveal to me that he’d rendered rosé in 2015 from Pinot Noir, and I found out about that wine’s existence too late to taste it. (For an extensive account of this young estate’s evolution, vineyards and methodology, please consult the introduction to my account of Adam’s 2014s as well as the accompanying tasting notes themselves. Note that the word trocken does not appear on Adam wines for which that description legally fits, so I have omitted it from those wine’s names but referenced their legal dryness in my tasting notes.)”

David Schildknecht, Vinous (06/17)