JJ Prum
Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese
Wehlen
2005

The producer

Founded by Johann Josef Prum in 1911, this is arguably one of the finest estates in Germany with 13.5 hectares of land in some of the region’s most famous vineyards including Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Zeltinger Sonnenuhr, Graacher Himmelreich, and Bernkasteler Lay.

The Sonnenuhr (“sundial”) vineyard is the most priced jewel in the Prum family’s crown. Located right across from the village of Wehlen, Sonnenuhr has south-west aspect, blue slate soils, is incredibly steep, and arguably is one of the Mosel’s finest vineyards.

The Graacher Himmelreich vineyard is lying across the Mosel River from the village of Wehlen. It is on a steep, south-west-facing slope with deep slate soils. 

The estate is situated in Bernkastel-Wehlen and is today run by Katharina Prum since 2003. The wines are mineral and pure, racy, and light-hearted yet serious expressions of Riesling with a certain elevated feel to them.

The Goldkapsel moniker is used to denote an additional level of quality within a Pradikat, such as for example Auslese, but is not regulated by German wine law. It is a kind of limited edition, best production of the vintage or lot, which is not made every year.

The wine

The Sonnenuhr (“sundial”) vineyard is the most priced jewel in the Prum family’s crown. The Auslese wines from Sonnenuhr have great aromatic complexity, a full body and rich creamy texture, yet are relatively light in alcohol, elegantly balanced and with a sweet yet lively finish. 

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.