Mosel Riesling: dry, off-dry and sweet

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%, and everything must be picked by hand. 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 word people stumble over is sweetness. Mosel Riesling spans everything from bone dry to dessert sweet, and the label tells you where on the scale you are. Here is the range, shown through the wines we import.

Dry

Brauneberger Juffer Kabinett Trocken from Bauer is light and dry: 11.5% alcohol, 6.3 grams of residual sugar against 7.0 grams of acidity. Citrus, ripe apple and salty minerality. Serve it well chilled with fish, shellfish or sushi.

Vom Roten Schiefer from Paulinshof is picked on the red slate, which is less common than the blue and gives a touch more warmth and depth. 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.

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 and beyond are late-harvested, sweet wines with long ageing potential, and they are part of what the Mosel is best known for. 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.