“Pineapple in syrup, marzipan, and pure honey are joined on the intense nose and the glossy, seductively creamy, viscous palate by some of the same nut pastes and liqueur-like green herbal concentrates that feature in the corresponding Juffer BA. But here, mouthwatering salinity adds to the next-sip compulsion of a superbly sustained finish that is similarly profoundly and seductively layered. (I tasted this the day before it was to have been bottled, but it had already withstood filtration as well as sulfuring and I have every confidence that no mishaps will have been allowed to occur thereafter.) Drinking window: 2020-2065. 95-96 points

Oliver Haag’s team commenced picking on September 15, 2018. “Physiological ripeness had arrived, while must weights were rising – and we didn’t want dry wines with too much alcohol,” he explained. “In the end, the dry wines are half a percent stronger [in alcohol than their 2017 predecessors] and a bit lower in acidity, but still fine, elegant and minerally, not to mention very approachable. It’s a very good vintage,” he concluded, “even if not among the top vintages of the past decade. The wines are a pleasure to drink now, but I have no concerns about cellaring them. And I think this will not be one of those vintages whose wines fall into a deep hole somewhere in their evolution, but that they will perform very consistently. We picked all of our parcels twice and most of them three times,” he continued. “I instructed the harvesters first to take what was still a bit green in color, for Kabinetts with freshness and levity. Next up were the Grosse Gewächse, so that they didn’t end up with too much alcohol. Those were picked in the first and especially the second week of harvest. We had each cluster examined to remove any botrytis-affected grapes, so that must weight didn’t become too high. I left some healthy grapes for later and ended up with one parcel at 99 degrees Oechsle. Okay, the grapes were wonderful in a way, but how to accommodate something like that? It was too much.” (Those last two words were spoken in English.) Picking here continued through the first week of October, with what relatively little there was of noble botrytis being carefully curated along the way. I think Haag’s overall assessment of his 2018 collection may sell his talents and the vintage’s potential short, especially given how impressively the nobly sweet wines show. ”

David Schildknecht, Vinous (11/20)

“Smoky black tea, cinnamon spice, and candied lemon rind in the nose of Prum’s 2010 Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Auslese lead to a palpably dense, chewy yet glycerin-rich palate of spicy intensity and intriguing pungency but lacking the levity, clarity, or succulence that characterizes other wines in the present collection (and in particular the corresponding Spatlese). As this takes on air, it continues to prickle and tingle both aromatically and on the palate in a way that confirms the impression of more significant and marginally less pure as well as less subtle botrytis than found in most of its siblings. Still, this is a strong-finishing Auslese that I suspect harbors the multi-decade potential one anticipates from its genre at this address. And indeed, if it weren’t for the prestigious address, my slight reservations might seem quibbles. 91 points

Katharina Prum says she and her father performed some de-acidification on their eventual generic Kabinett bottling as wine, but otherwise employed only sparingly light double-salt must de-acidification, insisting that late harvesting was the essential measure to be taken this year against high acidity. (And, as usual, most of the wines were bottled in high summer, relatively late when compared with those of nearly all their Middle Mosel neighbors.) It’s not so much that measurable acidity dropped significantly in the second half of October, opined Prum, but that the character of the acidity changed in immeasurable ways. Other than the aforementioned generic bottling, concentration was deemed simply too high this year for any of an already small crop to be rendered as Kabinett. And indeed, only the two most prominent sites were captured in Spatlese format; all else is Auslese and above. Prum notes that levels of residual sugar are seldom significantly higher this year than in other recent vintages, with the result that the wines generally tend to taste a bit drier. “Above and beyond” (as it were) those wines I report on (or whose existence I at least mention) below, there is material from Wehlener Sonnenuhr expected to inform long gold capsule Auslese, Beerenauslese, and Trockenbeerenauslese and be released in future years. (Veteran readers of my reports will know by now that while there are often multiple eponymous Prum bottlings, the family is loathe to disclose the A.P. #s of wines they serve in tastings, numbers that might be required to disambiguate between lots which they insist that there will only ever be very slight difference. In 2010, the crop is was so small that there are few alternate bottlings.)”

David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate (199)