Robert Weil Kiedrich Gräfenberg Eiswein 2016

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

“The famous blue label of the estate has become the symbol of the highest quality of German wines. Only a few wine estates can boast such a continual and high level of overall quality.”
Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve, Great Wines of the World

“Weil is widely seen as the jewel of Rheingau.” Jancis Robinson, The Financial Times

“Robert Weil has been one of the icons of German wine culture for many years. Nothing but the finest Rieslings are produced. And as more than 100 years ago, the wines are distinguished in terms of their origins and their style.”
Stephan Reinhardt, The Finest Wines of Germany

“The style of Robert Weil wines is unmistakable […] mineral, citrus-fruit flavor in the dry wines with no angular acidity and a crescendo of concentration and white peach fruit in the sweet wines.”
Freddy Price, Riesling Renaissance

The Rheingau wines of Robert Weil have reached well beyond cult status and today are revered across the globe as some of Germany’s most superlative Rieslings. Based in the town of Kiedrich, Weil’s wines are fuelled by the three epic, high altitude, south facing vineyards of 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 Rieslings.

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. 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 time on lees subject to the cuvée.

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 at this very marginal, northern climate. With some of the highest (up to 780 ft ASL) and most revered vineyards in the region, Robert Weil is today the superstar of the Rheingau.

The 2016 Vintage at Weingut Robert Weil

Thanks to tireless work in the vineyards, a wet and worrisome start gave way to a fairy tale summer and bountiful autumn!

The winter of 2016 kicked off with the same all-too-familiar mildness of recent years, and ended up the second warmest ever measured in the Rheingau in over 130 years of record-keeping.

The winegrowing community was much more concerned about a different factor, however: unusually high volumes of precipitation that fell well into the summer months. The rain was initially viewed as a welcome chance to replenish the soil following extremely dry conditions in 2015. As the deluge progressed on an almost-daily basis from mid-May through the end of June, the winegrowers began to wonder if their boon had turned to bane. And yet the bigger picture remained rosy. Budbreak arrived in the last week of April and flowering began in mid June, both well within the 30-year mean. We were also spared the classic springtime hazards of hail and late frost this year, although we did observe fungal growth, especially Peronospora, which loves such wet conditions. The choice and timing of which countermeasures to deploy became an existential one.

And then, almost unexpectedly, the skies brightened and a magnificent July, August and September dawned. For those vines and grapes that had come through the tribulations of the first half-year unscathed, a fairy tale summer and golden autumn awaited. The sun returned from wherever it had been on holiday and graced the vineyards with plenty of rays. The initial ripening phase was unremarkable during the final days of August, but thanks to the stunning September that followed – the Rheingau’s warmest in human memory – the berries enjoyed nearly perfect ripening conditions. A bit of rain in early October did nothing to darken the outlook for a fantastic vintage.

We were fortunate to bring in tremendously healthy fruit of stunning physiological maturity. The Gutsweine were already measuring well over 80 °Oe when we launched harvest in early October. Just as important was a harder-to-measure factor: the grapes tasted fantastic. It’s important to always remember that a wine can never taste better than the berries used to make it.

The extended hangtime provided the Ortsweine, the steep Erste Lagen and the Grosse Lagen vineyards with more opportunity to ripen in full and develop a complete and complex range of aromatics. In addition to our prized dry Rieslings, 2016 graced us with delicate naturally and nobly sweet Prädikat wines, thus making 2016 the 28th consecutive year at Weingut Robert Weil to see a successful harvest of Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trocken-beerenauslese.

Overall harvest yields lined up with the well-established average, with the exception of our nobly sweet Prädikat wines. That fruit hung happily and healthily on the vines well into November, promising mouthwatering wines but highly limited quantities.

Where in the World is Weingut Robert Weil?

Weil is based in the Rheingau just to the north of the Rheinhessen on the western border of Germany.

Map by Fernando Beteta, MS @fernandobeteta on Twitter