Time for tradition: Riesling's hour has come
Markus Molitor is not a man who takes the easy option. Nor is he one who follows the crowd. For one thing, while many producers in Mösel give precedence to elegance and lightness above all else, Molitor isn't afraid of power. In fact he isn't afraid of much. Like Olivier Humbrecht in the Alsace, he is able to manage extended fermentations in his chilly Mösel cellars, with his Rieslings working slowly for months sometimes as per tradition. In this way he is able to achieve a depth of flavour and complexity few of his peers can match, yet all with a distinct Mösel terroir signature.
2016 saw our first and very popular offer of a few wines from his fiendishly complex array of vintages and styles. His system of classifying his wines by style, by vineyard and by quality can take a minute to understand, so this year too we are keeping our offer simple though slightly more extensive. The vineyard bit is easy as that's part of the name. White capsules are dry wines. Slate-green capsules denote off-dry or feinherb wines, while gold capsules indicate sweet wines. So far so simple. The infamous stars are only affixed to the Auslese wines and indicate that this is a reserve wine, with *** the top level.
We major on the amazing Zeltinger Sonnenuhr vineyard with its pure blue slate and steeply terraced, ancient and largely ungrafted vines. We offer you these in dry and sweet styles. For the off-dry Rieslings we selected two equally distinct yet very different terroirs, the spice-laden Ürziger Würzgarten and the stone fruit and mineral-inflected Zeltinger Himmelreich. These are brilliant wines that deserve a place in your cellar. /CW
Offered subject to remaining unsold; for shipment winter 2018/19
