WTN: Fritz Haag Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese 1983 LGK

A.P. nr. 2 577 050 20 84 7.3% A/V

This most remarkable offering from Fritz Haag must rate as one of the most compelling German Riesling's I've had the pleasure of trying in my twenty-five years of serious wine drinking. Admittedly, my exposure, to date, of the great estates, vineyards and the best vintages has been less than stellar, but with this particular wine, such is its beauty, composure and completeness and with its almost inbuilt sense of indelibility, deserves every point of the 95 I've given it tonight.

The colour belies its considerable age - a very healthy bright light gold. The bouquet holds a beguiling mix of freshly squeezed lime, lemon zest, white peach, yellow nectarine and mandarin intertwined with a flinty minerality, river pebbles, a touch of honey and a whisper of wet clay. There's not the slightest suggestion of petrol or apricot kernel - an amazing feat! In the mouth the wine reaches another plateau - gorgeously delineated, fresh, silky and rounded, filling every portal with exquisite flavours of lime, ripe Packham pear, nectarine, crisp newly picked apple, redcurrant and a suggestion of cassis all wrapped in a shroud of impeccable mineral-tinged refreshing, crisp acidity that leads to a morish sweet and sour finish of great authority and length. Such are the seemingly immortal powers of this wine, I would predict a drinking window from now to something approaching 2023. Any of the resident German Riesling gurus can correct me on my possibly outlandish assertion but I'm happy to hold a few of these back for some time to see if my prediction holds true.

[David M. Bueker]

I would not be shocked to see your drinking window be correct. When you get into the higher echelons of auslese the wines have a long arc with a significant plateau of maturity. Even on the downslope (which this bottle clearly was not) the wines have compelling things to say.

This most remarkable offering from Fritz Haag must rate as one of the most compelling German Riesling's I've had the pleasure of trying in my twenty-five years of serious wine drinking.

Great TN. Makes me incredibly jealous I think today's Fritz Haag wines aren't so good as his wines from 1990, 1988, 1983 and from older vintages. Any thoughts on this?

David L: 2023? I think you underestimate the aging potential of Riesling . I had last year a Fritz Haag 1959 Auslese (the Estate was called Ferdinand Haag back then) and it was just incredibly fresh.

Dieter: I am not so sure about such generalization. I have heard everything about Fritz Haag. He did bad in 1989 and 1990 due to the Flurbereinigung. He was bad at the beginning of the 90s because of young vines, etc. The 1983 that I have had are good without being great (but obviously others like David Lole seem to have more luck!), I had lousy 1988 and bad 1990. But one of the greatest wines ever made is his 1994 Auction Auslese ... In the younger years, he was very successful in 2001 and 2002. After Oliver took over, a change in style occured and the pressure tanks + cultured yeasts were abandoned in favour of stainless steel and ambinet yeasts. This makes the wines more bulky in their youth and Haag addicts were disappointed. I tasted the 2004 Spätlese recently and it was incredibly lively and very BJS in style. TO take a more recent example, his 2007 Spätlese might be the Spätlese of the vintage (at least in my eyes). So there is still a lot to take from the Estate!

He did bad in 1989 and 1990 due to the Flurbereinigung...I had lousy 1988 and bad 1990..But one of the greatest wines ever made is his 1994 Auction Auslese ..his 2007 Spätlese might be the Spätlese of the vintage (at least in my eyes)

Jean, many thanks for your interesting statements. It's funny: I loved every Fritz Haag from 1988 (especially his Spätlese VDP auction) and 1990 (from Spätlese upwards) that I've tasted so far. Take his 1990 "standard" Auslese for comparison: isn't this much more concentrated than any "standard" Auslese his made since then? Regarding his 2007 Spätlese I'm not sure what made you think that this is better than the one from J.J.Prüm, Vollenweider, Egon Müller, Weiser-Künstler, Clemens Busch and all others