Is Mosel Riesling dry or sweet?

Mosel Riesling can be anything from bone dry to dessert sweet. The label tells you which: trocken is dry, halbtrocken and feinherb are off-dry, and without a sweetness term you need the analysis. Below we go through the range with the wines we import, but first the place.

Riesling is the grape that shows where it comes from, and few places show it more clearly than the Mosel. The river valley is steep: the Juffer vineyard above Brauneberg is a pure south-facing slope with gradients up to 80%. The soil is slate, and the slate comes in several colours. At Paulinshof in Kesten it is blue-grey in the lower parts of the slopes, with reddish patches at the top. The stone stores heat through the day and releases it at night, and you taste it again as what wine people call minerality: an impression of wet stone behind the fruit.

The limits for dry and off-dry are regulated to the gram, and they are in our article on trocken and brut.

Dry

Brauneberger Juffer Kabinett Trocken from Bauer is light and dry, a Kabinett fermented to trocken. Citrus, ripe apple and salty minerality. Serve it well chilled with fish, shellfish or sushi.

Vom Roten Schiefer from Paulinshof is named after the reddish slate at the top of the slopes. White grapefruit, lime and wet stone.

If you want a step up in concentration, Brauneberger Kammer GG is Paulinshof's dry top wine, from the vineyard the family owns outright. What GG means is in a separate article.

Off-dry

Brauneberger Kammer Feinherb is a Spätlese feinherb from the same vineyard: late-harvested grapes and a residual sweetness that rounds off the acidity. It is the wine we reach for when someone needs a match for spiced food. More on what feinherb means in a separate article.

Sweet

Our selection currently stops at off-dry. But the scale continues: Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese are made from ever riper grapes, and that is where you find the sweet Mosel wines. The Prädikat alone does not mean the wine is sweet, see our article on Kabinett. If you miss a sweet Riesling in our range, tell us and we will listen.

You will find all the Mosel wines in the Germany selection, available through Vinmonopolet's ordering range.