This cuvée is a blend of fruit from Weil’s high-altitude sites dotted around the village. These vineyards include the brilliantly named Sandgrub vineyard and there’s also a good dollop from Wasseros, a steep, southwest-facing vineyard that abuts the Gräfenberg vines. The soils of these sites are typically composed of stony, fragmented phyllite interlaced with loess and loam. At this level, the wine is vinified in stainless steel with less than 5% fermented in large oak.

Look out for flavours of citrus oil and white flowers alongside saline and steely mineral notes. The palate bursts with leesy succulence and mouth-watering freshness, while the close is sleek and long, finishing with remarkable clarity and racy finesse. This is already a world-class Riesling, and it’s only the beginning of the range!

This cuvée is a blend of fruit from Weil’s high-altitude sites dotted around the village. These vineyards include the brilliantly named Sandgrub vineyard and there’s also a good dollop from Wasseros, a steep, southwest-facing vineyard that abuts the Gräfenberg vines. The soils of these sites are typically composed of stony, fragmented phyllite interlaced with loess and loam. At this level, the wine is vinified in stainless steel with less than 5% fermented in large oak.

This cuvée is a blend of fruit from Weil’s high-altitude sites dotted around the village. These vineyards include the brilliantly named Sandgrub vineyard and there’s also a good dollop from Wasseros, a steep, southwest-facing vineyard that abuts the Gräfenberg vines. The soils of these sites are typically composed of stony, fragmented phyllite interlaced with loess and loam. At this level, the wine is vinified in stainless steel with less than 5% fermented in large oak.

Look out for flavours of citrus oil and white flowers alongside saline and steely mineral notes. The palate bursts with leesy succulence and mouth-watering freshness, while the close is sleek and long, finishing with remarkable clarity and racy finesse. This is already a world-class Riesling, and it’s only the beginning of the range!

We tasted Weil’s dry Kabinett in Germany last year and immediately requested an allocation (not that we received anywhere near as much as we would have liked). Compared to the Rheingau Trocken, this release is drawn exclusively from a selection of the coolest and highest slopes of Kiedrich, principally the steep, southwest-facing Wasseros vineyard that abuts the Gräfenberg vines. Another difference is that the fruit is harvested a little earlier, gifting a wine at least a degree lower in alcohol but no sweeter. The style is a lighter, more filigreed expression with a caressing lightness of touch that dances on the palate. It was raised exclusively in stainless steel. 

The style is a lighter, more filigreed expression with a caressing lightness of touch that dances on the palate. It was raised exclusively in stainless steel.

Weil’s ‘villages’ level Riesling is a blend of first-picked parcels from the classified hillside estate sites of Klosterberg, Turmberg and Gräfenberg as well as a measure of Wasseros fruit. As you would expect from such terroir, it is a step up from the entry wine—with more texture and power and considerably more rocky and mineral intensity. Accordingly, one-third of the wine is raised in large Stockinger doppelstückfass (wooden cask) for six months.

It’s full of pulpy orange and lemon goodness and driven by tangy, mineral freshness. There’s plenty of flesh, but it just skates across the palate. Compared to the 2020, this represents a return to a more archetypal Kiedrich style and it beautifully expresses both its origins and the meticulous culture behind it.

The vines on this steep, four-hectare vineyard are now between 40 and 60 years old. At up to 300 metres, this is the highest of the three Weil hillside sites, yet thanks to its southern aspect and deeper, iron-rich weathered slate soils, it also produces the most opulent and seductive of these wines (when young). The Weil team often use the term ‘baroque’ when describing wines from Klosterberg, in reference to the lift and generosity. Like all of Weil’s single site ‘21s, this wine was raised entirely in doppelstückfass and aged on full lees for ten months before bottling.

While the Klosterberg shares some similarities in character with the Kiedricher wine, you always get a kick up in intensity, complexity and drive at the finish. It’s such a finely detailed Riesling buzzing with coiled intensity, ripe citrus, and pulsating freshness. So young, but so hard to resist.

As in the Klosterberg site, the vines here sit in the 30- to 50-year-old range. The name Turmberg—or ‘tower hill’—derives from the ruins of the last surviving tower of the former castle, Burg Scharfenstein (12th century), positioned dramatically atop the vineyard. The infamous German wine law of 1971 made this site a part of the neighbouring Gräfenberg. Yet, in 2005, Weil succeeded in having this 3.8-hectare monopole reinstated as an individual classified site in the vineyard register (historically, it had been a separate vineyard, reflecting the unique terroir). It’s interesting to note that while Turmberg has the official right to be classified as Grosse Lage, Weil chooses to bottle an Erste Lage from this steep vineyard. “There is only one tip on a pyramid,” he explains, referring to the Gräfenberg.

With its base of phyllite rock (metamorphosed slate) and thin topsoil, the Turmberg vineyard offers up fruit of much more mineral voltage than the Klosterberg, and in general, is a racier wine (think great Saint Aubin as opposed to great Chassagne). Again, this stunning, ultra-precise Riesling was raised entirely in doppelstückfass for ten months.

Another taut and radiant 2021, it opens with lovely, sweet citrus and floral charm complemented by blackcurrant leaf, wild herb and peppy spice. The palate plays a blinder, with impressive density cosseted by a surging chalky freshness, striking mineral focus and exceptional length. Most would not bat an eyelid if this were labelled Grosses Gewächs.

As in the Klosterberg site, the vines here sit in the 30- to 50-year-old range. The name Turmberg—or ‘tower hill’—derives from the ruins of the last surviving tower of the former castle, Burg Scharfenstein (12th century), positioned dramatically atop the vineyard. The infamous German wine law of 1971 made this site a part of the neighbouring Gräfenberg. Yet, in 2005, Weil succeeded in having this 3.8-hectare monopole reinstated as an individual classified site in the vineyard register (historically, it had been a separate vineyard, reflecting the unique terroir). It’s interesting to note that while Turmberg has the official right to be classified as Grosse Lage, Weil chooses to bottle an Erste Lage from this steep vineyard. “There is only one tip on a pyramid,” he explains, referring to the Gräfenberg.

With its base of phyllite rock (metamorphosed slate) and thin topsoil, the Turmberg vineyard offers up fruit of much more mineral voltage than the Klosterberg, and in general, is a racier wine (think great Saint Aubin as opposed to great Chassagne). Again, this stunning, ultra-precise Riesling was raised entirely in doppelstückfass for ten months.

As is so often the case, Weil’s 2021 Gräfenberg Spätlese exhibits textbook balletic poise between the wine’s natural sweetness and laser-like acidity. The grapes for Weil’s Auslesen were harvested without any botrytis influence and you can read in the reviews it looks like a case of no harm done! These are the kind of iridescent wines that have helped shape Rheingau’s legend for the past two centuries. Alcohol 9%; acidity 9.1 g/L; residual sugar 88.5 g/L.

Think about everything you love about this grower’s Spätlese, and then add some more. A wine of sublime purity and chiselled tension, the ‘21 offers up a kaleidoscopic array of flavour—try all kinds of citrus, quince, sweet yellow florals, woody herbs and slatey notes—all perfectly balanced by thrilling, daisy-fresh acidity and mineral precision. Weil’s picking army—which numbers up to seventy strong—has worked its magic again, gifting a beguiling, pure and tangy wonder that seems to dissolve in the mouth. The 9% alcohol comes in very handy: it’s impossible to stop drinking.

The vineyard of Kiedrich Gräfenberg—or ‘hill of the counts’—has been used to designate Robert Weil’s finest wines since the site was officially classified as ‘Weinlage 1 Klasse’ in 1867. Home to Weil’s oldest vines (up to 80 years of age), with the majority on their own rootstock, it makes perfect sense that Wilhelm Weil decided that it was only from this site that his Grosse Gewächs would derive (despite the fact that he could actually release three GGs from all his single vineyards). 

Weil’s aim has been to replicate the style and quality of the full-bodied dry wines that were produced in the Rheingau a century ago when the region’s finest Rieslings were the most expensive wines in the world. Despite the high quality of the Turmberg and Klosterberg, this is clearly on another level. It’s not necessarily more intense, but it’s certainly finer and more complete—a wine of obvious Grand Cru class. This year the GG was raised for 10 months (instead of 12) on lees in large, neutral oak doppelstückfass (large Stockinger casks). When you think of what we are paying now for top-notch Grand Cru white Burgundy wines, Weil’s remains an absolute bargain, matching the best of them for class and quality. Few (if any!) could match it for longevity. 

The vineyard of Kiedrich Gräfenberg—or ‘hill of the counts’—has been used to designate Robert Weil’s finest wines since the site was officially classified as ‘Weinlage 1 Klasse’ in 1867. Home to Weil’s oldest vines (up to 80 years of age), with the majority on their own rootstock, it makes perfect sense that Wilhelm Weil decided that it was only from this site that his Grosse Gewächs would derive (despite the fact that he could actually release three GGs from all his single vineyards).

Weil’s aim has been to replicate the style and quality of the full-bodied dry wines that were produced in the Rheingau a century ago when the region’s finest Rieslings were the most expensive wines in the world. Despite the high quality of the Turmberg and Klosterberg, this is clearly on another level. It’s not necessarily more intense, but it’s certainly finer and more complete—a wine of obvious Grand Cru class. This year the GG was raised for 10 months (instead of 12) on lees in large, neutral oak doppelstückfass (large Stockinger casks). When you think of what we are paying now for top-notch Grand Cru white Burgundy wines, Weil’s remains an absolute bargain, matching the best of them for class and quality. Few (if any!) could match it for longevity.