Winemaker Notes
Extreme dryness across the summer months, followed by variable weather in autumn, presented massive challenges and demanded steady nerves during the 2022 growing season. Young vines struggled in the intense heat, yet the older vines proved their resilience. In spite of the immense heat on the stony slate soils, their roots effortlessly reached deeper layers of earth with sufficient water. As challenging as the 2022 vintage was, the extraordinary quality of the wines shows that their many labors were worth it. Our Rieslings are already impressing us with concentrated fruit, yet also a certain lightness and fine elegance of massive promise.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Fascinating nose of vanilla bean, licorice, white peach and melon. Giant wet stone freshness that pushes the unfermented grape sweetness, inherent to this style, way into the background. Firm structure at the long, cool and subtly earthy finish.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Beautifully delineated, pure and zingy. This shows expressive and concentrated notes of candied lime, vanilla and cream that mingle with the lively structure. Huge intensity of flavors and richness packed into this sleek frame.
-
Wine Spectator
Full, succulent and ripe, this white leans into its lush, off-dry profile, offering earthy dimension. Green tea tannins keep this from being too decadent, while juicy peach, honeysuckle and verbena flavors merge with wet slate and smoke notes through the fresh, persistent finish. Drink now through 2040. 500 cases made, 90 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.