Prüm is on a roll under the stewardship of Joh Jos’s great-granddaughter Dr. Katharina Prüm. Katharina has made only modest changes in the winery (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it) but she and her team are, of course, having to adapt in the vineyard to meet the challenges of global warming.
2022 was among the hottest years on record in the Mosel, with less rainfall than other, recent “solar” vintages such as 2018. The response was a rigorous green harvest across Prüm’s 20 hectares, particularly of the younger vines (more prone to hydric stress). Harvest proper began on September 19th which, despite dramatically different growing seasons, was just a few days earlier than in 2021. As Katharina explains, growers who insist on picking early for fear of losing acidity risk making wines that taste lean rather than fresh and balanced.
Lush yet energetic, the 2022s from JJ Prüm brilliantly make Katharina’s case.
2022 is a vintage to enjoy rather than enshrine, but this being Riesling from the Mosel, the wines can be cellared with confidence for a couple of decades at least. Predictably, cooler sites like Graacher Himmelreich have excelled, but the S-SE facing Wehlener Sonnenuhr also shows its class. While 2021 will be remembered as a truly great year for Kabinett, the consensus is that Spätlese is the Prädikat level to look out for from 2022.
Katharina’s right-hand woman, Carine Patricio (who worked for years as a sommelier at numerous Michelin-starred restaurants throughout Germany), memorably describes Spätlese as the stereotypical misunderstood middle-child and lauds its peerless versatility in terms of food-matching. Click here for Carine’s recipe Königsberger Klopse – a traditional German meatball dish which, she tells us, will go brilliantly with the 2022 Graacher Spätlese!
There was little botrytis in 2022, but Goldcapsules were produced from the Bernkasteler Lay and Graacher Himmelreich vineyards. There’s also a tiny quantity of Long Goldcapsule Zeltinger Sonnenuhr; the longer capsule denoting a higher proportion of botrytised grapes in the wine and therefore a quality and style – in terms of concentration and age-worthiness – closer to a Beerenauslese.
As you would expect, Katharina and her team prioritised quality over quantity in 2022 (most obviously by sacrificing much of the potential crop with the green harvest). With limited volumes available across the range, please express your interest to a member of the Stannary team as soon as possible. The wines are now in bottle and are scheduled to land in the UK before the end of the year.
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