Winemaker Notes
Grown on hard, grey slate in the cool microclimate of the Saar Valley, the Bockstein Kabinett appears elegant like a ballerina due to its fine body, great flow and aromatic balance. Smoky and floral hints of elderflower, lilac and chamomile connect with citrus fruits and flavors of wild herbs and woodruff.
Bockstein Kabinett pairs perfectly with a light, fresh and well spiced cuisine, especially carpaccio, ceviche, seafood, Indian curries, melon wrapped in Parma ham or salads with berries and herbs.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Slight funky and very flinty, this is a striking Kabinett that’s genuinely light in body (in spite of climate change) with delightful mineral and floral vibrancy. What a breathtakingly fresh and complex finish with everything from lime zest to tropical orchids!
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Picked three weeks later than the Goldtröpfchen Kabinett yet with only 2° more Oechsle, the 2019 Bockstein Kabinett is a picture-book Kabinett: clear and flinty on the precise, attractively reductive and floral nose. Picked on October 14, this is a fresh, piquant and stimulatingly salty yet also intense and juicy Kabinett with expression and grip. Stimulatingly salty and crisp.
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Wine Spectator
Perfumed and expressive, featuring apricot, apple, elderflower, celery root and cumin aromas and flavors. Supple and creamy, shows a lingering aftertaste, echoing the fruit, floral and savory notes.
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.