No. Not a typo.  This gorgeous, dry, pedigreed Mosel Riesling Grosse Gewachs is, indeed, eight years old!  And the price isn’t a typo either.  Sometimes it’s just better to be lucky than good, and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time when news that this wine, shipped directly from the cellars of Thanisch, would become available.  The story goes that the Thanisch’s USA importer, while visiting the cellar this past winter in order to purchase the just-released 2022s (some of which you’ve already availed yourselves, by the way) was shown this 2016 Graben GG by Christina Thanisch, fifth generation owner of this Mosel icon. Her intention was to prove to the importer that her Grosse Gewachs dry Rieslings, a relatively new project for the family, could gracefully age.  Upon tasting the wine, said importer flipped his wig and begged to buy all he could of this cellar treasure and, lo and behold, thanks to PRIMA’s large purchase of the 2022 Bernkasteler Doctor wines, we were rewarded with a chance to grab few cases of their largesse.   Uh, OK!  Sign us up!  This cuvee, only the second vintage of GG ever made at Thanisch, comes not from the famous Doctor Vineyard,  but from Graben, just adjacent to it, on ungrafted vines aged 60 to 90 years on the same vertiginous slope of Devon slate.  Finished dry (2.5% RS) at 12.5% alcohol, it shows just how close to white Burgundy a dry Riesling can be!  Rich but lithe, there’s this solid core of lemon confit, lime peel, stone fruit and salty mineral on the nose on a medium weight palate that offers up that classic Riesling finish we all crave.  Dry, but not at all austere, it’s so savory and delicious about a million food pairings come immediately to mind, but a nice grilled filet of halibut topped with a spicy salsa verde sounds awfully good right now.  Drink now, because all the work of cellaring has been done for you at the cold Thanisch cellars in Bernkast.  You could also keep it another decade and discover yourself the hedonistic joys of a truly mature Riesling.  We love the price!

Vinous Media: The nose here strikingly features wet stone and savory veal stock, with intimations of apple, like and white peach decidedly in the background. The palate is seductively silken with ripe yet bright fruit emerging to greater prominence. But the savory and subtly saline sides of this reassert themselves in the long finish, offering memorable saliva-inducement, while wet stone supplies an ideal sounding board for the fruit.  This is a terrific example of richness allied to freshness and fruit concentration allied to intriguing mineral and carnal dimensions.  92 points