Winemaker Notes
Erni Loosen goes to great lengths to keep his Kabinett rieslings truly elegant, delicate and refined. Only 8.5% alcohol, this Urziger Wurzgarten Kabinett exhibits aromas and flavors of ripe strawberries, golden delicious apples, yellow plums and a distinct spiciness unique to this vineyard. Wurzgarten = Spice Garden.
Drink this textbook Mosel Kabinett with smoked salmon, pan fried trout, a spicy Asian salad or garlic roast chicken.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
This is a lovely weighty Riesling, showing a more noticeable sweetness than the Erdener (despite lower residual sugar of 39.4g/l). It's so appley and juicy at the moment, although you can imagine it opening up in a few years to reveal more complexity. Drinking Window 2019 - 2030
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Wine & Spirits
Crisp and snappy, this has an uplifting prickle of CO2 that emphasizes its zesty acidity. It blossoms with air, taking on an arugula-like spice that weaves through its pithy citrus flavors while savory minerality provides the base notes. It’s full-bodied yet delicate, with a sense of springtime in its freshness.
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Wine Enthusiast
Delicate mango and hon- eydew perfume this zippy, spine-tingling Kabinett. A classically fruity, Mosel sip from nose to finish, it’s pierced with concentrated tangerine and lemon flavors. The finish is marked by a touch of honey and bracing tangs of steel and slate.
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Wine Spectator
Ripe and juicy, this opens with a saffron note, followed by pear and apricot flavors, detailed by subtle hints of honey. Shows great focus and intensity throughout, ending with a long, mouthwatering finish.
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.