Riesling "Ex Bibliotheka" Cuvée "100" Spätlese

To mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Schloss Johannisberg winery, Stefan Doktor and his cellar team have created a wine that “you only get once in a lifetime.” They descended into the wine archive and tasted the estate's long-filled Spätlese wines back to the 1915 vintage. They selected favorites from each decade and blended them into a new, non-vintage Spätlese that will be marketed next year, the anniversary year, as Schloss Johannisberg Ex Bibliotheca Cuvée 100 Spätlese. It is supposed to express the great aging potential of Schloss Johannisberger's Spätlese (late harvest) from the last 100 years. Occasionally, one can indeed bid for an old Schloss Johannisberger Spätlese, but they're at prices that only true enthusiasts can afford. The anniversary wine is to be sold at a comparatively moderate price level, but the exact amount has not yet been determined. The wine, however, has been defined and bottled in June. The cuvée is limited to 1,000 bottles, and all of the base wines come from the Bibliotheca Subterranea, the estate's underground treasure trove, which is considered the first Riesling vineyard in the world. Each bottle will come in a decorative wooden box, along with a booklet about its history and the underlying vintages. The cuvée has a natural sugar content of 62 grams per liter with an acidity of 7.6 grams per liter and is pleasingly salty and piquant. It is an extraordinary drinking experience in any case, and the maturity of a great Riesling is incomparable to anything else in the world. The NV Schloss Johannisberg Ex Bibliotheca Cuvée 100 Spätlese combines the finest Spätlese bottlings between 1915 and 2011, which add up to 36 vintages. This golden-yellow beauty opens with a clear, precise and elegant Spätlese bouquet that represents all the class and potential of the Schloss Johannisberg. It is pure, deep, intense and elegant and as flinty and floral as it is fruity and most of all elegant and beautifully balanced. This is an irresistible wine with an immaculate texture and highly stimulating salinity and mineral grip. Honey, white nougat and apricot flavors populate the palate and the finish, and the wine is intense in a very elegant and mouth-coating yet weightless way. It is rich but refined and elegant, vital and refreshing and to be enjoyed in large sips. The wine is moderately sweet, and the finish is intense and very long. Ripe and juicy apricots and morel/porcini notes make this a savory gastronomic wine that is immediately great and unique in style. How can we rate it? It has remarkable finesse and savoriness with lovely tropical fruit aromas, and it's very harmonious and a true representative of the glorious Schloss Johannisberg. Tasted at the domaine in August 2024. 

- Stephan Reinhardt (10/2024)