From the Rhine shore and cultivated on sandy loess soils with a high chalk content, the 2017 Riesling Trocken Sankt-Nikolaus "GG" is fine and intense on the pure, fresh and even chalky and flinty nose. On the palate, this is a dry Riesling that is pure and fine yet deep, lush, very complex and crystalline, very persistent and salty with fine tannins, a stunning nervosity for such a warm site and a driving vitality with concentrated and long-lasting Riesling flavors. This is a great wine from a difficult vintage and a milestone for Peter Bernhard Kühn. The Sankt Nikolaus suffered neither spring frost nor hail in 2017, which makes this the greatest 2017 of the domaine so far. Bottled in April, tasted in May 2019.

The intriguingly pungent nose conjures a seascape of ocean breeze, kelp, oyster shell and driftwood. The glycerol-rich, uncannily thick yet not in the least heavy palate offers a corresponding combination of mouthwatering salinity with a sense of stone and chalk suffusion. If ever there were a wine in which you can palpably detect enormous extract, it’s surely this one. Lime and crab apple serve for invigorating brightness and tartness that belie how long this wine sat on its lees and that it underwent malolactic conversion. The finish, superbly transparent to the myriad mineral impressions that went before, displays enormous resonance and reach, leaving one’s salivary glands pumping. Here is a wine such as I imagine some of the great, age-worthy Rheingau Rieslings of 75 or 100 years ago might have tasted when they were young. And indeed, my prognosis of ageability might prove a ludicrous underestimation.