JJ PRÜM - Graacher Himmelreich Auslese 2005
JJ Prüm (Joh. Jos. Prüm) is located in the village of Wehlen on the banks of the Moselle in Germany . The Prüm family has been producing wine in the Moselle for several hundred years, but the estate was founded in 1911 by Johann Josef Prüm . The estate was taken over by his brother Sebastian in 1920, the year JJ Prüm created his first sweet wine Auslese, and became one of Germany's best known and most respected wines. Since then, the estate has remained family owned. John. Joe. Prüm has around twenty hectares of vines spread over several Erste Lage vineyards. Almost half of these are in the vineyard of Wehlener Sonnenuhr , who craft a range of styles under the Prädikatswein system, including Auslese, Beerenauslese, Eiswein and Trockenbeerenauslese.
Graacher Himmelreich ("Kingdom of Heaven") is a large 87 hectare vineyard of steep, weathered clay and blue slate. This terroir makes it possible to produce wines that show great minerality and aging capacity.
Auslese is made from grapes that have a must weight of 83-110 Oechsle (the hydrometric scale measuring the density of grape must) which equates to 191-260 g/L of residual sugar, and where the grapes are manually harvested with noble rot.
The 2005 vintage in Germany was superb. The growing season was fantastic with an Indian summer which allowed the grapes to reach full phenolic maturity. Good weather peaked for most areas with an early harvest. Top performing regions included the Moselle which produced some extraordinarily stunning examples of Riesling, from dry to sweet. All in all, a wide range of wines are still ready to drink now, especially long aging Rieslings and the best sweet wines will still have plenty of life in the cellar ahead of them.
Varietal: 100% Riesling
