IIRC there was also a Prum Spatlese Eiswein at some point. I know I have had pre-official definition Prum Eiswein, but I can’t recall if it was Kabinett or Spatlese, and I tasted it pre-smart phone, so I have no photo. 
Brother Salil posted this note!
That is the same vintage as my Kabinett.
So that’s probably the vintage I had, but it was not that bottle. Much longer ago.
Wonder how that worked in practice. You need to measure the sugar content of each parcel the day before frost is due just in case…
And then there is the issue of the minimum oechsle for labelling a wine as Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, etc… and not a maximum opening for shenanigans in marking higher oechsle wines as lower prädikets, that is to say riper wines as not so ripe (i.e. labelling Spätlese as Kabinett etc…).
Oy vey!
But returning to OT, I really don’t have any suggestions as I don’t shop off-dry in that price segment.
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Or just let a handful of grapes thaw completely, crush and check out their must weight? 
Shenanigans? You make it sound underhanded.
It’s OK if you don’t like the riper wines, but upper limits to ripeness are not something that exist basically anywhere.
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Until climate change destroyed the category (throwback 2021 notwithstanding), these were my touchstones.
Let’s say Winzerverein Ayl, Ayler Kupp Riesling Kabinett. My guesstimate of numbers:
Alc ~8%
Restzucker ~18g/l
Titratable acidity ~1
pH - ~ 3
Take me home, country roads.
RS was generally well above 18 g/l before climate change really became a factor.
I think that was about normal in those kinds of wines. I wouldn’t argue if you told me 25 g/l in a Saar Riesling Kabinett, I seriously doubt more, but some of them could have been 15 g/l as well. And that’s for a wine at ~8%. At ~7% it of course could be higher.
What vintages Dan? Those numbers were far surpassed by the mid-1990s. I still have plenty of 7 & 8% kabinett from the 1990s with a lot more sugar than that, and more than a few in my dwindling supply from the ‘80s.
yup. there was definitely a 1973, and i was fortunate enough to drink a bottle with a couple of friends. (twice - the first time was sadly corked, the second was god-tier and just about perfect.)
My biggest regret with the '12 is not buying enough. I bought a bunch and drank it all young. I don’t regret the drinking young part though, but I should have bought twice as much.
Agree with this and many other names in this thread, but I’ll also throw out Koehler-Ruprecht - some of the older Saumagen halbtrockens (and the Auslese RR, which in some years was barely dry and felt like a halbtrocken) were really amazing, and I think they still make a few wines in that style, although I don’t see them at retail regularly.
Thanks for your thoughts! I read up more on Keller RR and found this incredible story on the 2022 vintage:
From Vomboden:
Keller’s “RR” is one of those insider’s bottles. Normally, the wine is sourced from a rare red-soil parcel within the Kirchspiel. This cask rarely ferments totally dry and the Kellers have always enjoyed the natural balance of the wine. It’s what we’d call a “feinherb” – the wine is just a bit off-dry. Normally, you’ll see the bottle labeled as “Kirchspiel RR,” the “RR” denoting “Riesling” from the “Red” soil.
With vintage 2022, however, Klaus Peter Keller said that a cask from a top parcel of Abtserde and one from a top parcel of Morstein, normally destined for the GGs, simply did not ferment totally dry. I think the temptation for the Kellers was too much; they had to combine these parcels, these casks. And so the 2022 comes to us as a rarefied triumvirate – Kirchspiel, as per normal, supercharged with Abtserde and Morstein.
The wine is labeled only as “RR” – KP was the one to joke with me in a text that this year the “RR” stands for “Rolls Royce.” Have no doubt, this is a serious feinherb, just barely off-dry with somewhere around 12 grams of residual sugar and an electric acidity that clocks in at over eight grams per liter. This is one for the history books.
Keep in mind the Kellers also know the market’s whims very well. Given a cask that did not ferment dry, they could have easily warmed up the cask, added yeasts – there are a number of tools available to the grower to encourage fermentation, to make the wine totally dry. If they had done this, the result would be a Morstein GG and an Abtserde GG they could sell for four to five times the price of the “RR.” Yet they chose not to… because of this magical balance. We use this phrase a lot: “Never for money, always for love.” The line works here too.
KP ended his text about the 2022 “RR” to me with this line: “For wine geeks only.” Who wants a splash?
I’m not trying to spend more money - I was just hoping there was a higher level product available. ie. imagine you discovered you like $30 Chianti and then get to experience a cult Brunello. That’s what I’m hoping for for off-dry riesling.
True!
Then discard the water and concentrate the must. 
Thanks so much! I read countless articles and tortured ChatGPT & Claude for hours and it did not produce this obviously correct answer!!
Try Trimbach Clos St. Hune from Alsace, but this will be > $100 and totally dry.
Start reading this (it is free). Mosel Fine Wines | Mosel & Riesling Publication
In 2012, I published a two-part article about Kabinett and interviewed various estate owners and winegrowers about the style of the wines in the previous decades. (This is the second part of the two-part article.)
In one excerpt, Carl von Schubert at Maximin Grünhaus explains that residual-sugar levels for Riesling Kabinett have significantly jumped since the 1970s and 1980s from about 20 to 30 grams of residual sugar to 60 or more grams per liter. Of course, Carl is only referring to the fruity-sweet Kabinetts, not those labeled as halbtrocken or feinherb. (Since 2016, Carl’s eldest son, Maximin, has taken the reins of the property.)
This amount of residual sugar has since gone back down for many top producers, including Egon Müller, who later decided to keep relatively high must weights, say, 88 or 89 degrees Oechsle, but at lower amounts of residual sugar, so instead of 60 grams of sugar per liter, the Kabinetts had 40 grams and 9 percent alcohol, whereas Zilliken continues to produce Kabinetts in the high 80s with about 60 grams of sugar per liter. I believe that the 2021, 2022, and 2023 Scharzhofberger Kabinetts from Egon Müller have ripeness levels in the low 80s.
In past years, Willi Schaefer has Kabinetts in the low to mid-80s with between 40 and 50 grams of sugar per liter. Other top producers might have a Kabinett with 78 or 79 degrees Oechsle depending on the vintage. The 2024 vintage will be extremely light on the Saar and Ruwer with must weights in the low to mid-70s in some cases.
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Yes I think we have been over this - Retailer for German wine - #23 by Dan_Kravitz
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