(for 375 ml.) Golden yellow. Rich aromas of mango, candied quince and lemon oil mingle with spicy botrytis. Intense, deep flavors of rich pit fruits and glazed honey are nicely framed by the wine' elegant saline minerality. This massive auslese is certainly the finest in Loosen's line-up this vintage, but will need time to reveal its potential.

Smoky black tea, sassafras, singed grilled pineapple, brown spices, and orange liqueur inform the nose of Loosen’s 2007 Erdener Pralat Riesling Auslese gold capsule. This beautifully and uncannily combines lift and lightness with intensity of flavor; ennobled richness with sheer juiciness; and oiliness of texture with clarity and definition of flavors. Bitter-sweet and smoky elements of herbal concentrate and black tea further help to offset the wine’s sweetness in a long, layered finish. It should merit 25 years in the cellar if not longer. Despite slightly disappointing dry wines, and Kabinetts and nobly sweet wines that do not reach the heights established in those genres by this estate’s 2005s and 2006s respectively, Ernst Loosen and his cellar-master Bernard Schug have nonetheless scored considerable success in 2007, a vintage they describe as temperamentally between 2005 and 2004. As regards style and success rate, the comparison with 2004 seems about right to me. Harvest began already in the first week of October, but as usual at this address with its enormous acreage of top-notch vineyards, the early phase was taken up principally with highly selective picking for nobly sweet wine. “From the first day to the last,” comments Loosen, “each picker gets two tubs” for separating qualities of fruit. “And there were shriveled, TBA-quality grapes already on the first day this year,” adds Schug. Importer: Loosen Brothers, Portland, OR tel. (510) 864-7255

Essence of Mosel Riesling. Lovely lemon fruit and spice and the rich weight of ripe fruit, a little honeyed at the very end and beautifully balanced, so fresh on the finish. (JH)