Thank you very much, moderators, for letting me in. I collected wines around Y2K, but my 1st and only encounter with Mosel wines was a buy of 4 bottles Bernkasteler Lay 1983. I favoured Rheingau wines, and was nuts about Staatsweingüter Eltvilles crisp design and (the eagle lables)… good wines I had, but from only Kloster Eberbach, and Schloss Vollrads. I came across WineBerserkers in a new reaearch reviving the interest from Mosel and was stunned about how little I knew and how much knowledge there is. I learned more about Mosel in one day than 20 years. So… while honing my Mosel-skills… I would like to activate my participation by asking for advice about Rheingau. I have diabetes mellitus 2, so I’m not really not into ausleses and beyond (well maybe up to auslese). I love the notion of mature Riesling, so my quest is to find ageworthy Rieslings in the category kabinett and most of all interesting Spätleses from Rheingau. Thank you
Hi Adrian, Welcome to the board! I had a similar question last year and started a thread on it then:
You may also want to post this in Wine Talk. You’ll generally get more responses there.
Welcome Adrian!
I agree that some of the older Kloster Eberbach wines were indeed excellent - glad to hear you have enjoyed them as well. My experience with their more recent wines is limited to a 2012 which was very good, but not quite profound. Others can probably say more about them.
At the Kabinett and Spätlese level in the Rheingau, definitely check out Leitz, Spreitzer, and Weiif you haven’t yet. Theresa Breuer absolutely excels with dry Riesling, and I highly recommend her wines. Kuhn is also excellent for dry Riesling, albeit in a very different style. Finally, Schloss Johannisberg has greatly improved over the past 10-12 years.
Welcome!
As mention just above, Spreitzer does wonderful work in the Kabinett and Spätlese range. Leitz has turned much more towards dry wines in recent vintages, and the pradikat wines are mostly on the entry level, though still extremely well done.
If you are trying to watch the sugar I would heartily recommend the Spätlese Halbtrocken and Spätlese Feinherb wines from Spreitzer. I drink a lot of them. Had a 2017 Jesuitengarten Feinherb Alte Reben from Spreitzer a couple of months ago that was delicious with lots of room for further improvement.
I don’t have encyclopedic knowledge here, but I’ve always enjoyed Becker’s wines. Many of them are dry, up to and including an Auslese Trocken.
There are relatively frequent library releases, too. It’s been maybe a bit over a year since I last saw some, but I remember ~$50 bottle for various bottles with 20-25 years age, Kabinett + Spatlese, some dry and some not.
The young Auslese Trockens I bought more recently were similarly priced.