With J.J. Prüm (Mosel) and Müller-Catoir (Pfalz) in our portfolio alongside Robert Weil, we are proud to be able to offer three of Germany’s greatest producers from the three top Riesling regions. The Rheingau was historically Germany’s most revered vineyard region and once produced the world’s most expensive wines. You only need to glance at a wine map of Germany to see why. This is Riesling’s Côte d’Or; a series of sheer, south-facing, rocky slopes that maximise exposure to the sun and protect the vines from the bitter northern winds. It is this confluence of natural elements that enables Riesling to perfectly ripen in this very marginal, northern climate. With some of the highest and most admired vineyards in the region, Robert Weil is today, the superstar of the Rheingau.

Based in the town of Kiedrich, Weil’s wines are fuelled by three epic, high-altitude, south-facing vineyards in Klosterberg, Turmberg and most famously, Gräfenberg, all situated in the foothills of the Taunus Mountains. From these historic sites, Wilhelm Weil, a pioneer of ‘earth to glass’ wine growing, guides Rheingau Riesling to its most seamless, precise expression and, in doing so, produces some of the world’s most inspirational examples of the grape.

The quality and class are evident from the very first wine (the Rheingau Trocken) and the wines become finer, more intense and more overtly mineral as you head up the range.

While Wilhelm Weil’s meticulous, everything by hand, berry by berry, approach, is a key factor in understanding the remarkable precision of these wines, it is, as always, the vineyards that dictate the ultimate quality and personality of the wines produced. These steep, stony, mineral-rich vineyards are managed in order to maximise their terroir expression. Herbicides are never used, and as the aim here is to encourage life in the soil, only organic manure is applied, and cover crops are grown to add to the organic matter. Grapes are harvested by hand with as many as 17 passes through the vineyard, ensuring only the most pristine and perfectly ripe grapes make it into each wine. In the winery, all fruit receives a pre-ferment maceration, typically between 6-24 hours (or a lengthy 72 hours for the Erstes Gewächs). There is a very gentle pressing of whole berries, the musts are allowed to start fermenting naturally and spend varying times on lees subject to the cuvée. The resulting wines are exhilaratingly pure and ultra-precise Rieslings, each intense in both fruit and mineral punch.