2012 Nik Weis St. Urbans-Hof Wiltinger Alte Raben Riesling

(aka 2012 St. Urbans-Hof Riesling) BTG 12/48

Where: Mosel, Germany

Who: Nik Weis is the third generation winemaker at St. Urbans-Hof

What: Riesling!

Tastes like: Biting into a green apple. Sweet, tart and refreshing, very well balanced with the classic note of Riesling we’ve all have come to call “petrol.”

What to pair with: Riesling loves food and food loves riesling. The most killer pairing on our menu right now has to be this lovely lady with the Tart Famblée. Why? Because the richness of the bacon gets cut by the acid in the wine, and the sweetness of the fruit highlights the sweetness in the caramelized onions. Also, pork tasting, pork belly, cheese of all sorts but particularly the creamiest ones, the broccoli pizza, and anything with spicy heat.

10 Point Philosophy:

1. At the beginning of great Mosel wine is a concept. To achieve greatness one needs sufficient knowledge and a clear vision of what is possible. This is true with any authentic wine, not only those from the Mosel.
2. An Authentic Mosel wine is made from the Riesling grape, and our wines are exclusively Riesling. This variety is perfectly suited for our region.
3. Mosel Riesling must be grown on Slate. Slate is a soil type found in precious few wine regions - but is widespread in Germany, especially in the Mosel valley.
4. A vineyard should not only be grown, it should be grown over decades. One may look upon a vineyard simply as a 'production facility'; then it'd be enough merely to have a fertile soil and productive vines. What will be lacking in this instance will be a sense of typicity in the finished wine.
5. The vine loves the sun, but even more the shadow of its master. "Le vigne aime le soleil, mais plus encore l’ombre de son maître" is an old proverb of French winemakers that states poetically, yet clearly, that a good wine needs the sun but, even more, the maintenance of the vintner.
6. The path of grape to bottle must be as short and undisturbed as possible. In order to preserve the individual vineyard character, the flow of winemaking from the grape to the bottle must be as smooth and gentle as possible.
7. Making true mosel wine also means to have faith in nature. The slower that a fermentation occurs the slower CO2 is released; a cool cellar is the ideal condition for slow fermentations because fruitiness will develop best in this manner.
8. Sweetness belongs to Mosel wine like bubbles belong to Champagne. A Special Wine has a Special Character. The oldest, most classic wine regions produce wines with a singular character.
9. Organizing wines by quality levels (Pradikat) supports the best:

Germany is the only wine producing country which separates its wines into two distinct categories dictated by sugar levels at harvest

• Qualitätsweine (allowed to have sugar added to the juice before fermentation so as to increase alcohol, known as "chaptalization", named for the French chemist J-Antione Chaptal [1756-1832]) and
• Prädikatsweine (in which chaptalization is forbidden and strictly distinguished by sugar level at harvest).

Before the 1971 revision of the German Wine Law, prädikat wines were rightly declared 'naturweine' (natural wines).

Provided the winery adheres to these proscriptions, the wine lover can rely upon this codified series of profiles. This is how we achieve clear wine categorization of: Kabinett--light and elegant with low alcohol. Spätlese--juicy/fruity character clearly showing a minerally expression.

Auslese--a mouthful of intensely sweet/sour character in a viscous, mouth-coating body with enormous aging potential. Beerenauslese--rare and intensely sweet with a varying 'noble rot' character. Trockenbeerenauslese--very rare and sweet with a unbeatable earth and 'noble rot' character--.

10. Mosel wines age gracefully.