Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel 2010

“Pink grapefruit, pear nectar, and honey are invigoratingly augmented by citrus rind and pear skin piquancy on the nose and lusciously-fruited palate of Oliver Haag’s 2010 Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Auslese Gold Capsule A.P. #9. Rich suggestions of nougat emerge as this takes on air, offering a fascinating, somehow harmoniously integrated counterpoint to the wine’s citricity. Pear pip and citrus zest help bittersweetly extend a formidably long finish. This is less dazzlingly complex today than the gold capsule Auslese from the Juffer, but I would expect it to merit a quarter century or more of attention, during which it may well reveal itself as a slower developer. “You had to wait to pick,” comments Oliver Haag picked, “but not too late. Because after the end of October we had more rain, and by then the stems weren’t just ripe but just about shot (fertig), so that the grapes were literally hanging by a thin thread.” Different degrees of double-salt de-acidification were essayed (always on must), frequently only on certain lots of an eventual blend; but of the unabashedly residually sweet bottlings, Haag insists that only the Kabinett reflected a significant degree of de-acidification. Haag in my view quite correctly characterizes his generic bottlings as most illustrative of the vintage’s challenges and his selectively-picked residually sweet wines as being above-average … “average” at this address, of course, having over the past several decades designated a very high quality indeed. “There were a lot of tough decisions to be made this year,” he relates. “Should we harvest this parcel or that? Pick now or later?” I share Haag’s opinion that as a group these wines will need longer than usual in bottle to really show their stuff. 93 points”

David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate (12/11)