Wine of the week: a mind-blowingly exciting aperitif

published 16 October 2020

Graacher Himmelreich, Riesling, Kabinett, JJ Prüm, 2018, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Germany

£19.68, Justerini & Brooks, 020-7484 6430, justerinis.com

JJ Prüm is just about the only epic wine estate in the world on my hit list of greats that I have yet to visit. I have travelled to Germany many times and I have asked to visit Prüm (twice), but they have turned me down (both times). I am not sure why, but it hasn’t stopped me drinking gallons of their wines and writing up their finest releases in my various columns.

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The rieslings from the Wehlener Sonnenuhr vineyard, across all sweetness levels including the rare goldkapsel (gold capsule) wines, are all celestial, highly sophisticated and extraordinarily age-worthy. This 33-acre estate, with nearly 70% of ungrafted vines, also includes holdings in Zeltinger Sonnenuhr, my featured Graacher Himmelreich, Graacher Domprobst, Bernkasteler Lay and Bernkasteler Badstube, and all of these wines are worth tracking down.

My featured wine is a bargain and a beauty – at a sniff under 20 quid, it is positively irresistible. It tips the scales at a teeny 9% alcohol and this means that it is ever so slightly grapey and off-dry on the palate. It’s like stepping back in time 40 years to an age when we all drank delicate Mosel Rieslings instead of gauche sparkling wines before dinner. Nothing has changed in the Jukes household over this period because we still enjoy this tradition! So try your hand at this mind-blowingly exciting aperitif because it is totally alive with prickly acidity and heavenly, tender fruit.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (matthewjukes.commatthewjukes.com)

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Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.