Winemaker Notes
The grapes were softly crushed and macerated for several hours on the skins. After maceration the juice was fermented using only natural yeasts. The wine rests on the lees following fermentation producing a balanced and aromatic wine.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Riesling Wehlener Klosterberg Kabinett (White Capsule) shows a ripe and lush, bright and finely concentrated white peach aroma intermingled with coolish slate notes. Dense and straight on the palate, this is a lean and tense, saline and grippy Riesling that is far too young to be enjoyed before 2025 or maybe even 2030. Coming from a warm year, this is a cool-climate Kabinett that comes in with 10.5% stated alcohol but an intense taste.
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Wine Spectator
A very dry take on a kabinett, this unusual Riesling's piercing acidity brings a chiseled feel to the crisp nectarine, green melon, lemon peel and delicate floral notes. Salty umami and green tea details add to the many layers of complexity. Well-built for sure, this will be interesting to see evolve with time. Drink now through 2032. 1,000 cases made, 85 cases imported.
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James Suckling
A succulent mouthful of Mosel with plenty of peachy and floral-honey character. Lively, but not dominant acidity, the finish surprisingly long for this entry-level category.
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Wine Enthusiast
This Riesling shows lilac, peach and star fruit backed by firm acidity that makes your mouth water. Balanced and detailed, ending with an aftertaste of savory mineral and spice.
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.