You're simply the best!
Praise can be inspiring – we all know that. And when Europe's largest wine magazine awards our flagship, the single-vineyard Riesling, top marks, it's a bit like Christmas and a birthday combined. We just experienced exactly that, and ever since, we've been walking through our vineyards with a big grin on our faces. But what exactly is behind it?
Wein.plus wanted to conduct a blind tasting to test and compare various categories of international wines. When we heard about the competition, we took a deep breath, looked each other in the eye, and then plucked up the courage before grabbing the precious bottles from the vault and sending them in.
Why the nervousness, you ask? It takes real courage to submit older wines... because if they fail, the entire vintage is practically unsellable. But because you should throw yourself into something with all your passion, we promptly sent a total of 35 (!) exquisite bottles on their way to the test of courage.
And what can we say? Courage is rewarded! Our Riesling has once again proven that aging can be a gift: All of our treasure chamber wines from 2023 to 2015 received top marks across all four vineyards: 26 received the grade "very good" and nine "good." This is a tremendous result, especially considering the extremely strong (international) competition. We are overjoyed that independent tests have given our work and vision such outstanding ratings.
The very personal favorite
Would you like to know which count is most enthusiastic about which vintage… in other words, which bottle we would personally pick from the wine cellar if we wanted to celebrate a day like no other?
Otmar
Our senior partner's favorite is the 2017 Kalkmergel Riesling . 2017 wasn't actually a great Riesling year, as neither rainfall nor temperatures really made the vines happy. This excellent rating is all the more impressive.
The wine tasters at Wein.plus put it this way: "A fairly firm, delicately smoky, and distinctly vegetal to herbal nose with yellow fruit aromas and chalky-lime notes. Quite taut, juicy, sweet fruit, vegetal to herbal and still yeasty notes, quite lively, fine acidity and some carbonation, a grip from mellow tannins, good persistence, again chalky-lime minerality, a hint of rock candy and caramel in the background, but no breadth, a very good, again sweet finish with spice and a certain pull."
And Otmar said: “Just awesome.”
Peter
Our oenologist Peter would be sure to pull the 2019 Schiefer Riesling out of the vault if there was something to celebrate. As a technology-loving expert, Peter loves the expressiveness of this very meticulously crafted wine.
The wine tasters at Wein.plus described it this way: "A slightly muted, slightly developed, vegetal aroma with yellow fruit notes, floral nuances, and stony-mineral traces. Partly candied, not entirely dry fruit with lively, quite fine acidity and noticeable carbonation, a certain persistence on the palate, tart herbal-vegetable notes, a hint of yeast, crumbly-sandy tannins, relatively firm structure, good to very good, again mineral finish."
And Peter? "A wine to smack your tongue."
Jürgen
Our marketing visionary and organizational talent Jürgen, on the other hand, loves the perfectly balanced Buntsandstein Riesling from 2015 .
The wine tasters at Wein.plus described it this way: "Herbal-vegetable and delicately smoky aroma with clear aromas of ripe yellow fruit, floral nuances, almond traces, and a certain minerality. Ripe, quite sweet fruit with tart vegetal aromas, some herbal mustard and floral nuances, fine acidity, grip of ripe tannins, persistent on the palate, salty minerality, a hint of dark berries in the background, waxy nuances, has power and some warmth, a slight phenolic bitterness, a good to very good, sweet-tart finish, again with a phenolic grip."
And this is what Jürgen says: “A glass of Palatinate poetry.”
Here's an overview of all 35 reviews.
Your happy-grinning Riesling counts
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