Winemaker Notes
This vineyard is so steep that, long ago, stone steps (“Treppchen”) were built into the hillside to help workers reach the vines. The iron-infused, red slate soil produces wines that are muscular and complex, with an intense mineral finish. The Spätlese designation means that the grapes get an extra week or two of hang time, which helps them develop higher ripeness and deeper flavors.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Very anise on the expressive nose, then a compact and racy palate with a ton of white tree fruits. Very vinous and well-structured, this is seriously on the dry side for a category often regarded as medium-sweet. Very long, crushed stone finish. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Erdener Treppchen Spätlese is coolish, precise and finely reductive on the pure and flinty nose. The bouquet is pretty complex, with refreshing lemon zest aromas. On the palate, this is a refined and elegant, light-footed, crystalline, saline and stimulating Spätlese from the Treppchen. Delicious but still a sample that will be bottled in late August this year.
Barrel Sample: 93-94 -
Wine Enthusiast
The ample and rich offering of cinnamon, cardamom and pistachio paste mingles with the vibrant flavors of apple and Key lime. It is sturdy, yet pretty light on its feet, like a classic Mosel wine. The finish is very fine and filled with slate minerality and tarragon.
Riesling possesses a remarkable ability to reflect the character of wherever it is grown while still maintaining its identity. A regal variety of incredible purity and precision, this versatile grape can be just as enjoyable dry or sweet, young or old, still or sparkling and can age longer than nearly any other white variety. Somm Secret—Given how difficult it is to discern the level of sweetness in a Riesling from the label, here are some clues to find the dry ones. First, look for the world “trocken.” (“Halbtrocken” or “feinherb” mean off-dry.) Also a higher abv usually indicates a drier Riesling.
Following the Mosel River as it slithers and weaves dramatically through the Eifel Mountains in Germany’s far west, the Mosel wine region is considered by many as the source of the world’s finest and longest-lived Rieslings.
Mosel’s unique and unsurpassed combination of geography, geology and climate all combine together to make this true. Many of the Mosel’s best vineyard sites are on the steep south or southwest facing slopes, where vines receive up to ten times more sunlight, a very desirable condition in this cold climate region. Given how many twists and turns the Mosel River makes, it is not had to find a vineyard with this exposure. In fact, the Mosel’s breathtakingly steep slopes of rocky, slate-based soils straddle the riverbanks along its entire length. These rocky slate soils, as well as the river, retain and reflect heat back to the vineyards, a phenomenon that aids in the complete ripening of its grapes.
Riesling is by far the most important and prestigious grape of the Mosel, grown on approximately 60% of the region’s vineyard land—typically on the desirable sites that provide the best combination of sunlight, soil type and altitude. The best Mosel Rieslings—dry or sweet—express marked acidity, low alcohol, great purity and intensity with aromas and flavors of wet slate, citrus and stone fruit. With age, the wine’s color will become more golden and pleasing aromas of honey, dried apricot and sometimes petrol develop.
Other varieties planted in the Mosel include Müller-Thurgau, Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) and Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc), all performing quite well here.