Robert Weil Monte Vacano 2019

Parker: Aged on the full lees over two winters and racked in late July this year (so after 22 months sur lie), the 2019 Monte Vacano is deep, intense and refined on the iodine and flinty, highly complex and precise nose that represents the phyllite terroir of the steep Lay plot of the Gräfenberg amazingly well, especially after a day in the opened bottle. On the palate, this is a highly elegant, crystalline, enormously complex, dense, round and rich as well as juicy Riesling that reveals a firm and sustainable structure with fine tannins from renewed large oak barrels that also add a certain sweetness to the finish that is enormously salty, long and tensioned. This is another impressive Riesling from the Gräfenberg, and it is richer and more powerful than the more filigreed Burg Scharfensteiner. But is it the "better" wine? The 2019 Monte Vacano seems to be even richer than the gorgeous, inaugural 2018. The palate, though enormously salty, still trails behind the precise nose at this early stage, but since this is a wine to be aged, this is nothing to worry about.