Dr. Loosen, Mosel (Germany) Dry Riesling Alte Reben 2019

 The dry Rieslings from Ernst Loosen’s top vineyards are fabulous in 2019, a year with a wicked heat spike in August and heavy rain late in September that caused lots of botrytis, which is great for noble sweet Rieslings but challenging for dry wines such as this one.  All of those challenges were overcome in this case, thanks to many factors including super strict fruit selection from very old vines and Riesling’s inherent resiliency against all sorts of climatic extremes.  This wine has serious palate weight that could challenge even experienced Riesling lovers to identify it as a Mosel wine if tasted “blind.”  (I “showed” a glass blind to a friend with a very good palate and lots of experience who guessed Albariño first and Pinot Gris second, just based on the wine’s richness, and not at all implausibly.)   On reflection, though, Riesling’s peerless class shows in the wine’s impeccable clarity of fruit, which recalls perfectly ripe tangerines at the core of the aromas and flavors.  Aromatic accents of white blossoms are quite lovely in their subtlety, and though the fruit notes are more prominent than usual in relation to the telltale slate minerality that defines great Mosel wines, there’s plenty of slate signature here, and it is likely to become more expressive as this bottling ages.  The wine’s acidity is very well integrated, which is again to say that this is a rich, fruit-forward wine that is already extremely enjoyable.  I’m not sure this will attain the inner detail and layered character of some cooler vintages of this wine from Loosen, but it shows as much near-term appeal as any I can remember, and remarkable heft without — somehow — seeming hefty.