2018 Maximin Grunhaus Abtsberg Riesling Spatlese, Mosel

The 2018 Maximin Grünhaus Abtsberg Riesling Spätlese opens intense yet pure and floral/herbal on the nose, with delicate yet intense dark flinty slate aromas. The palate is lush, round and highly stimulating with its delicate, crystalline and salty acidity, which lends remarkable finesse and length. This is delicious and fabulous in its weightless but nobly refined character and endlessly salty, playful but also long and mineral finish. Tasted from AP 6 19 in June 2019.

95 points Stephan Reinhardt robertparker.com

After a qualitatively excellent 2016 vintage and, due to frost damage and strict selections in the vineyard, a dramatically small 2017 vintage with just one-third of what was cropped in 2018, the latest harvest was terrific in terms of quantity and quality. The 2018 Rieslings are simply amazing and perhaps the very best produced here in many years. "2018 is the first vintage where we produced nearly all styles in all our vineyards," says owner Maximin von Schubert, who will probably still dream of his 2018s in 50 years. What a great start for this young man who took over from his father, Carl von Schubert, three years ago and slightly changed the style of the wines to more body, richness and power without losing the characteristic finesse and elegance of the Grünhaus terroir. No less than 12 (!) different Auslese selections plus two Beerenauslesen and one Trockenbeerenauslese were bottled when I visited the freshly renovated domain in Mertesdorf/Ruwer in June this year. "The different fuders all tasted so special that I decided to bottle them separately due to their uniqueness," Maximin von Schubert explained to me. However, I didn't taste all of them, so I still have some reasons to come back. Von Schubert started the harvest very early after mid-September to keep the acidity levels up while the must weights were still moderate "or at least not as high as we initially had expected." Since the autumn was beautifully sunny, there was no reason to rush even though the sugar levels were rising. The berries remained completely healthy, and as a consequence, the harvest wasn't finished until October 26 and brought an impressive range of different, highly individual Auslesen based on perfectly ripe and healthy grapes. Again, many of these are hedonistic beauties that combine precision and finesse with elegance and luscious, abundant fruit. Nevertheless, the harvest team managed to find botrytis grapes and select for Beerenauslese and even Trockenbeerenauslese. I don't know how they did it in a vintage like 2018, but I also tasted great Kabinett wines here, and the finest—a complete Fuder of Abtsberg Kabinett No. 25—will be auctioned this September in Trier. Beware, though, that these are Kabinett wines only on the label, while the palatable richness and sweetness is more of a Spätlese style. 2018 was the first year when a Grosses Gewächs from the Bruderberg was been produced, which I find very promising and really impressive. A bit strange is that magnums of the Bruderberg GG and Herrenberg GG will be sold at the Trier auction this year, while the regular 750-milliliter bottles will be available through the standard distribution channels. The Grünhäuser Pinot Noir is also steadily improving, and the 2017 is perhaps the best I have tasted here so far—though it's still a massive and toasty wine that needs some years to gain finesse. All in all, this is another outstanding series of wines from the Ruwer Valley that performed stunningly well in 2018.