Paul Anheuser, Niederhäuser Riesling

The Anheusers have been farming the steep slopes of Germany’s Nahe for 14 consecutive generations, and each remarkable bottle we’ve discovered keeps raising the bar for one of the planet’s greatest wine pleasures: aged Riesling. For that reason, we have separation anxiety when it comes to Anheuser’s importer—they’re always unearthing rarefied gems from the estate’s subterranean wine museum, so why wouldn’t we? Over the last two years, we’ve offered you a 50-year-old Auslese, a decade-old TBA, and everything in-between...or so we thought.Today’s 2002 Niederhäuser Riesling slipped onto our radar several months ago and after tasting it we promptly did two things: (1) placed it in our Thanksgiving six-pack since it was a perfect candidate and (2) bought every bottle that had just landed in the country. We hardly ever take risks like this, but when you taste the mineral precision, explosion of fruit, and herbal savor in each sip, and then recall that you paid $22 for a nearly 20-year-old wi