Winemaker Notes
This wine is a true expression of terroir from the single best parcels from each of the three vineyards. As Johannes' Father puts it "it’s a little silly to talk about 'terroir' when you're going out into the vineyard three times to select what aspect of terroir you're going to push forward. It's like picking two or three voices out of the chorus and saying 'Now you three shout.' What you want is for the entire chorus to sing." So beginning in 2003, Johannes began an experiment, which turned into a revelation. He waits until the parcel is “optimally ripe” and harvest everything at once— green berries, yellow berries, and botrytis berries, and ferment them spontaneously in fuder. This represents a traditional style and a true expression of terroir.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
A giant Mosel riesling that defies all the regular categories and stands tall alone at high noon. Immensely concentrated and extremely pure this is just beginning its long journey into the future of Planet Wine where a lucky few will praise its complete originality. Barely off-dry balance, but these words don’t really tell you much about this masterpiece. Limited production. Drink or hold.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Picked mid-October at 96° Oechsle, the 2022 Zeltinger Schlossberg Riesling Auslese Schmitt is still pretty reductive on the deep, precise and flinty nose. Lush and savory on the palate, this is a refreshing, clear and vivacious, grippy and tensioned Riesling from 43-year-old vines in a south-facing but open-to-the-wind vineyard. The finish is intense and stimulating, and after a decade—or better, two—this should be an excellent gastronomic wine for even meat dishes. 7% stated alcohol plus 99.8 grams per liter of residual sugar. Natural cork. Tasted at the domaine in November 2023.
-
Vinous
The 2022 Riesling Zeltinger Schlossberg Auslese Schmitt is fully south-facing and located on the lower mid-slope. The nose is still dominated by funky reduction. The juicy palate unites herbal savor, candied apple, vivid red apple, Reine Claude plum and ripe peach. This is lively, aromatic, shimmering with these various fruits and adding a little herbal spice such as crushed yarrow and fine slate. Vivid and lasting with 99g/L of residual sweetness. (Sweet)
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.