Schweigen Kalkmergel Gewurztraminer Auslese
⏳ Drinking Window
2023 - 2035
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
blue cheese, spicy Asian cuisine, fruit-based desserts
✨ Technical Specifications
Hailing from the historic border town of Schweigen, where German and French winemaking traditions seamlessly blur, this sweet Auslese showcases the unique terroir of the Pfalz's Kalkmergel (limestone marl) soils. Weingut Bernhart utilizes these ancient, calcium-rich soils to impart a vital mineral core and refreshing acidity to the naturally opulent, highly aromatic Gew'u00fcrztraminer grape. Historically, the vineyards of Schweigen have straddled the border with Alsace, making Gew'u00fcrztraminer a deeply symbolic variety for the estate. Crafted from hand-selected, overripe grapes, this Auslese is fermented slowly to preserve its intense bouquet of lychee, rose petals, and exotic spices, balanced beautifully by the cool-climate minerality of the Pfalz.
🍾 About the Producer
Weingut Bernhart is situated in Schweigen-Rechtenbach along the southernmost fringe of the Pfalz, right at the French frontier near the historic Deutsches Weintor. While the family's agricultural roots date back centuries, estate bottling commenced under Willi and Wilma Bernhart in 1971, followed by their accession to the VDP in 2004 and formal organic certification in 2012. Today led by Gerd and Sabine Bernhart, the estate commands a singular cross-border terroir: approximately two-thirds of its roughly 20 hectares of vineyards are technically situated on French soil in Alsace, governed by special bilateral treaties that allow the wines to bear German designations. The viticultural backbone rests on dense, fossil-rich limestone, calcareous marl, and clay deposits across benchmark cru plots such as the Schweigener Sonnenberg. Winemaking emphasizes spontaneous fermentation, lees contact, and judicious wood aging, generating deeply structured, mineral-driven white and red expressions epitomized by their Kalkmergel and Grosses Gewächs bottlings.
🍇 Grapes
Gew'u00fcrztraminer