Emrich-SchönleberRiesling Frühlingsplätzchen GG 2023 (750ml)

This is the Grand Cru sites with what I think is the greatest name out there – pronounced “Froooh-lings-PLATS-shen.” Go ahead and say it, it’ll make you feel good. It translates, roughly, to “little place of spring.” While the Halenberg is the denser, more monumental wine, with likely more stuffing and structure to age longer, I’ll admit the Frühlingsplätzchen is my favorite. There, I said it. I just love the soaring aromatics, the sharpness of the wine, the linear lightness and delicacy. They are rarely about fruit as much as they are about a saline quality, mineral and flower. This is a superb, superb GG that dances on the palate like a good old Spätlese Trocken… even Kabinett Trocken? 🙂

The top, top wines of 2023 are epic and this, well, is one of them: ripe, juicy fruit, yet crystalline and clear. Schönleber’s aesthetic works so well in this vintage – they are not flashy, but they are vivid. The Frühlingsplätzchen is sharp yet delicate, just insanely floral and perfumed – honestly on day two I go back to this and it’s even more technicolor, exuberant. Is this one of the most floral wines on earth? Maybe? Lemon balm, lavender, honeysuckle and floral nuances well beyond my descriptive abilities. I have the brief thought: Is this wine why I’ve become so fascinated by my flower garden in the past few years? Again: maybe? The floral component is for me the defining greatness of this wine, but it is also very sea-inflected, fresh ocean air, sea salt, green citrus, lime zest. The wine has such a fine energy, it feels satiny yet also firm, mineral. Just a profound wine that, like many 2023ers, drinks now beautifully with a few hours open. Unlike many 2023ers, I am confident this wine will develop beautifully for a decade or two.