Winemaker Notes
The famous "sundial" vineyard, in the village of Wehlen, produces the quintessential Mosel Riesling Kabinett: elegant and refined, with a racy texture and endless charm. This precipitously steep and rocky vineyard yields some of the most elegant and sophisticated white wines in the world. The classic blue slate soil gives the wines a delicate, crisp acidity that perfectly balances the pure peach and lemon fruit. It’s a lively wine that dances gracefully on the palate.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Very fresh and vibrant, with terrific white tree fruit and peach aromas, but this has terrific structure for a Mosel Kabinett, the fine tannins underlining the fruit beautifully. Very long finish for a wine with such a light body.
-
Vinous
The 2023 Riesling Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett offers hints of wet stone, clementine and Amalfi lemon peel tones on its aromatic, serene nose. The palate's slight sweetness and juiciness makes the mouth water. It's dripping with freshness and verve. There's such a citric quality that defines this exuberant wine.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett shows the typical refined and fragrant slate and bright, elegant Riesling aromas of this famous terroir. The 2023 Kabinett is light, round and lush, effortless in its generosity and finesse and stimulatingly saline in its delicate and irresistible finish. This is a superb Kabinett for impenitent drinking. It is a little drier than the likewise beautiful Würzgarten. 8.5% stated alcohol.
-
Wine Spectator
Fresh in feel, with a delicate floral perfume followed by juicy elderflower, peach and candied green apple flavors. Finely structured and lifted, with finely crushed slate and wet rock notes giving the off-dry finish polished precision. Drink now through 2029. 2,000 cases made, 400 cases imported.
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.