Leitz Riesling Rüdesheimer Berg Kaisersteinfels Terrassen Grosses Gewächs 2016

Ripe Mirabelle, white peach and lime zest open things up, threaded through with lily-of-the-valley, rowan and fresh thyme, an aromatic spread that covers serious ground. On the palate, the texture is plush and glycerol-rich, with succulent stone fruit rolling alongside persistent floral and herbal lift; soothing in one moment, mouthwateringly juicy in the next. The finish is long and layered, cycling through fruit, herb and flower before landing on a clean, site-typical salinity that pulls the salivary glands into action. At close to eight grams of residual sugar, this sits at the top end among Leitz's dry single-vineyard wines, and yet it reads as genuinely dry in context, its residual richness absorbed entirely by the wine's architecture. Leitz himself acknowledges some ambivalence about adjusting what was once a halbtrocken benchmark to meet the Grosses Gewächs threshold, but the wine's personality and its track record for aging have survived the transition intact. Drink now through 2030+.