Who Makes the Best Wehlener Sonnenuhr (besides JJ Prum)?

Drinking a bottle of Schloss Lieser WS kabinett 2018 tonight which, I must say, is really nice. This led me to ponder the fact that, while I’ve had a number JJ Prum wines from this vineyard—ranging from very good to outstanding—my experiences with other producers (generally one offs) has been hit and miss. Actually, mostly miss. I know I’ve sampled wines from Kerpen, Schaefer, and Molitor, at the least, though I haven’t kept details like vintage or my exact reaction; but none of them have grabbed me.

Anyway, I know there are folks here who have a great deal of experience with Mosel wines, so I thought I’d ask for learned opinions: outside of Prum, who makes the best wines from the WS site? And is this across the pradikat range or do you think that certain producers excel at particular levels?

Related question: I vaguely remember hearing that the boundaries of the WS were expanded significantly at some point (maybe the 1960s or 1970s?), basically to enable other producers to capitalize on JJ Prum’s reputation. Is this correct? If so, do people distinguish between the original plots and the expanded ones?

Thanks for any input. And apologies if there’s been a thread on this in the past; I’d appreciate a link if so.

Selbach-Oster makes some lovely Wehlener Sonnenuhr wines. Which pradikat depends on the vintage, as they don’t have the range of holdings of Prüm.

Willi Schaefer’s Sonnenuhr is hit and miss for me. Their plot is tiny, so not a lot of flexibility.

Kerpen isn’t in the same league as a producer, but the wines are good and good value.

Only had a few Lieser bottlings. Good stuff. We’ll see over time.

I think higher Pradikat wines shine in WS, Spatlese to GK Auslese, not necessarily Kabinett.

Spatlese, I enjoy Loosen, Auslese and GK Molitor, but don’t drink Auslese very often so limited exposure.

Depends on the holdings.

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Asked and answered as they say.
JJ Prum, especially if you are very patient.

Agree

The OP specifically asked “outside of Prüm.”

Well, I’m going to switch my vote to “What Bu3ker says”

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FWIW, it was a 1995 Selbach Oster Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese that turned me into a German Riesling fanatic.

Oops. Sorry read it too fast.
Suggest altering the title eg. “Who ELSE makes …”

Obvious alternates are Pauly-Bergeeiler, Molitor, Loosen.

Max. Ferd. Richter also makes a WS, but I’ve had only a couple a long time ago.

I haven’t had enough of this vineyard to make a fair comparison, but the 2018 Schloss Lieser WS Spatlese is great. Lieser is one of my very favorite producers though, and I don’t know if I’d ever had one of their wines that I didn’t love.

It’s a big vineyard (40Ha) and quite varied (South and Southwest facing) with 85m between the top and bottom vines. As implied above you can’t expect the same things from very small holdings (Schaefer is 0.2Ha).

The only producer I have in any quantity apart from Prum is Lieser and Max Ferd Richter, but so few bottles when compared to Prum as to be irrelevant really.

Richard—title adjusted, per suggestion.

David—thanks for this. Selbach Oster makes so many from so many sites (or so it feels) I have trouble keeping track of them. I’m pretty sure I’ve never encountered one of their WS bottlings, but I’ll definitely be on the lookout for them.

Jordan—my experiences with Lieser (limited to kab and spat from the Niederberg Helden) have been great. This kab was my first taste of their WS, and I’m pretty impressed; I’d certainly seek it out in the future.

Maybe I’m reading the room wrong, but it sounds like there’s plenty of producers folks are happy enough to drink, but other than SO (and maybe Lieser) not really any must haves. Fair?

If Coche Dury Corton Charlemagne and Jadot Corton Charlemagne were about the same price and availability, would you buy Jadot? JJ Prum is not much of a premium, so why drink others if you can get Prum?

As I said prior, I haven’t had enough but Molitor seems on par with Prum at Auslese and GK or *** levels. Spatlese, I think Prum wins hands down, stomp up a couple more bucks.

WS is a beautiful place. Nothing like driving across the bridge with the top down late in the afternoon of a beautiful late summer day right before harvest. Pull over and pick a few grapes for a snack.

There are most definitely better areas of this vineyard. Some are quite flat and others towards the West and near the top are much more sloped and ideal. Selbach-Oster may have multiple plots but the main one I saw was much more in the less ideal East and flat portion headed more towards Graach. Prum has the best holdings from the prime areas. Dr Loosen has some in a few areas, and I love their wine, but their wine doesn’t have the same longevity as Prum.

But the difference, of course, is that a bottle of WS spatlese costs $30-$50, as opposed ot whatever those wines go for. So even someone with my meager budget doesn’t need to worry about wringing out every last micro meter on the quality scale if there might be some interesting site expression or winemaking to be found by casting a wide net.

But that said, other than the aforementioned SO and Lieser, I’m not hearing much along those lines. So loading up on Prum sounds like the way to go.

Let me add, though, that the Molitor recommendation is one I’ll definitely follow up on. I’ve been kind of confused about molitor, tbh. The reputation seems stellar, while the bottles I’ve opened haven’t been that impressive. But I’ve just sampled a few spatleses and kabinetts, so I’m probably looking in the wrong part of the lineup.

Big fan of Loosen.

As I mentioned up thread, I enjoy Loosen Spatlese from WS, when it comes to Kabinett, I prefer Graacher Himmelreich, or frankly could live solely on Oberhauser Leistenberg Kabinett from Donnhoff outside of the Mosel, runner up to Schafer Frohlich Bockenauer Felseneck Kabinett…I enjoy energy in Kabinett vs. richness.

I haven’t done any really comprehensive WS tasting across different producers and prädikats but have tried a healthy number of wines from this vineyard from different addresses over the years. Many make good quality but obviously styles vary a lot and even if Prüm itself is not expensive per se some other producers’ wines have felt practically free of charge considering the quality (think Pauly-Bergweiler’s WS Auslese at 12€/75cl a few years ago). Another thing to consider is that while Prüm’s wines mostly really require sufficient time sideways many other producers’ wines drink really well from the get-go. As such I would say that unless you can buy mature Prüm some of the other producers might be interesting simply for the sake that you can enjoy them right away and even if the quality is not objectively at Prüm’s level it can still be exceptionally high in many cases. I know that a couple of months ago when I drank Kerpen’s 2005 WS Beerenauslese * (one star) I most certainly was not wishing in my mind that I had Prüm in the glass instead.