A.J. Adam, Dhroner Hofberg, Riesling Auslese, 2013, White-wine from Germany

7,5 points

„Deutscher Prädikatswein“ – what a German word! But if you, dear reader, see this and you are not a German wine expert then you can for sure expect best quality. This is top-level of German wines. Prädikatswein range from dry to intensely sweet, but unless it is specifically indicated that the wine is dry or off-dry as these wines always have noticeably mounts of residual sugar. As you have in some other countries other categorizations respectively classification. You could read much more about it at Wikipedia if you look for German wine classifications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_wine_classification).

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This white-wine of A.J. Adam comes from a sole vineyard called Dhroner Hofberg. It is if you like the local hillside of village Drohn, along the romantic small creek also named Drohn which flows into Mosel. This vineyard in the side valley of prominent Mosel belongs actually to one of top ten vineyards of Mosel area. Aside of A.J. Adam for example also Bischöfliche Weingüter Trier as some vineyards there. A.J. Adam just recently bought some more land there and does gather also classic dry Riesling from this estate.

This Auslese is between semi-dry and semi-sweet. The ground tone of the wine is sweet although still not as many other German sweet wines. It is wonderfully overlapped by notes of lemon, grapefruit and lime zest – the wine appears very fresh, is very precise and fascinating, even elegant rich of later summer flavors. This is added by all salty and in particular minerality of schist. I think this is a very finesse and exceptional wine and in my point of view really one of best semi-sweet wines I know – although much too young still. This wine can probably easily age for more than 20 years!

All of A.J. Adam’s wines fermented spontaneously in stainless steel and then bottled between March and May the year after harvest. It has only 7,5% alcohol.

As I already wrote about the winemaker and his classic Riesling (see here: Hofberg ) again I like to recommend you to reserve some his wines even in advanced. Many of them are quickly sold out. Even the questionable master of wine critics Parker graded the wine on 95 points!

Aside of the really unique tasting experience which takes away any fear about a “sweet” wine due to is clearness and mentioned elegance there is almost nothing better than such a wine along with hot and spicy Asian cuisine.