After the brilliance of the 2011 Brücke Spätlese and Auslese, I was beginning to wonder how the sweet wines from the Hermannshöhle were going to stack up this year. Never mind! The 2011 Hermannshöhle Auslese is a legend in the making, offering up a deeper and racier rendition of the vintage. The brilliant bouquet delivers scents of glazed grapefruit, tangerine, a touch of petrol, gentle notes of fresh pineapple, honeycomb and a topnote of violets. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, pure and even snappier than the Brücke Auslese, with brilliant purity, a great core, flawless focus and balance and a rapier-like and endless finish. This is one of the greatest examples of Hermannshöhle Auslese I have tasted since the legendary 1998 versions. Pure magic. (Drink between 2020-2075)

One of three products of botrytis selection in this site that extended into January, the Donnhoff 2011 Niederhauser Hermannshohle Riesling Auslese gold capsule strikingly combines custardy richness of texture and honeyed ennoblement with bright acidity; a wellspring of primary juiciness; and salinity that will milk you salivary glands for all that they are worth. Fresh orange with its candied rind; white peach jelly with piquancy of pit fruits; buddleia and lilac; passion fruit, nut pastes and vanilla cream add to the luscious allure of this remarkable libation. A faint aura of truffle and musk emerges with airing – no doubt pointing toward the extremely late picking of by then relatively mature yet still fine botrytis. Dynamically multidimensional, yet sharing with its Brucke counterpart a soothing sense of harmony, this almost endlessly fascinating as well as endlessly lingering wine deserves to be followed for three decades. -David Schildknecht