There it is. The butterflies in the stomach, the sudden feeling that you’re in the presence of greatness. Maybe it’s the confidence with which this wine presents its flavor, a mix that ranges from clementine to apricot and mango, ripe but not pushed. Or the sense of soil, an earthy, ruddy note that emanates a quiet warmth. Or the way the sweetness intertwines with the acidity to create a momentum that feels like it can’t be stopped; it goes sailing off into the distance, leaving a sweetness on the lips that lingers like a kiss.

Ripe, luscious and deeply flavored, with a juicy mix of glazed apricot, red peach and baked pear flavors that are flanked by rich notes of cream and spice. Very long and graceful on the finish, with loads of sage honey and tropical fruit notes. Drink now through 2040. – KM

Katharina Prum seeks to assure me that a 2010 Bernkasteler Badstube Auslese gold capsule represents her family’s first-ever Badstube bottling of that designation. As with the corresponding Zeltinger, she says “this was simply too ripe to call it merely ‘Auslese.’” There is brown spice pungency here more pronouncedly than one expects to encounter in Mosel Riesling which – when allied to chewy apple and pear skin as well as lemon and lime zest – engenders enormous invigoration in a wine whose brightly juicy citricity and sense of mineral impingement as it is serve for vibratory, near-electric intensity and finishing persistence. This doesn’t approach the refinement, intricacy, or seductive allure of the corresponding Zeltinger Sonnenuhr, but taken on its own terms represents a memorable achievement almost sure to remain robust for close to a half century. - David Schildknecht