Winemaker Notes
The Ürziger Würzgarten site is traditionally considered to be a specialty among the Middle Mosel vineyards because of its red iron-rich soil, which is mixed with fine slate. This gives the wines grown here a totally different character, with spice and opulent fruit as well as a crisp, hearty backbone, which produces a tremendously full-bodied wine when combined with a hint of residual sugar.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
Flinty, reductive funk covers up the nose of the 2021 Riesling Ürziger Würzgarten Kabinett Gold Capsule, but the palate comes in with a sweetness combining Granny Smith apple crunch with barley sugar and chervil crushed with salt. The freshness of 2021 cuts through and delivers phenomenal lemon length. Total verve. (Sweet)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Riesling Ürziger Würzgarten Kabinett (Golden Capsule) is clear and very delicate on the saline and flinty nose. On the palate, this is a lush and round, almost creamy-textured Kabinett with fine and crystalline acidity and a savory-pure and refreshing grippy finish. It's almost dry in taste due to the low pH of the 2021 vintage and the pure red slate terroir of Molitor's Würzgarten. This is a complex Kabinett with a very long and mouth-watering finish. 7.5% stated alcohol. Natural cork. Tasted from AP 062 22 at the domaine in May 2023.
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Wine Spectator
Inviting and high-toned, this starts with lacy floral and sweet alpine herb notes that reveal white peach and mineral energy on the off-dry palate. Round and fruit-driven, with smoky root vegetable bass notes and plenty of river stone minerality. Impressive purity defines the herb-edged, firmed-up finish. Drink now through 2035.
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.