Erdener Pralat Riesling Goldkapsel Nr18
⏳ Drinking Window
2024 - 2050
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Blue cheeses like Roquefort or Stilton, classic foie gras terrine, and fruit-based desserts such as peach tart or apple tarte tatin.
✨ Technical Specifications
The Erdener Prälat is legendary among Mosel vineyards, a tiny, south-facing amphitheater of red slate surrounded by massive, heat-retaining cliffs. This unique microclimate produces some of the warmest growing conditions in the region, yielding Riesling of unparalleled richness and complexity. Dr. Loosen's Goldkapsel 'Nr 18' represents an ultra-selective, botrytis-affected harvest from this grand site, fermented with native yeasts in traditional Fuder casks. Historically, the vineyard's name pays homage to the prelates of the nearby abbey who recognized this steep slope as the crown jewel of their holdings. The resulting wine is a masterclass in tension, balancing opulent tropical fruit, wild honey, and fiery red-slate minerality with the Mosel's trademark electric acidity.
🍾 About the Producer
Weingut Dr. Loosen stands as one of the preeminent global ambassadors of Germany's Mittelmosel. Under family ownership for more than two centuries, the estate experienced an epochal renaissance after Ernst 'Erni' Loosen assumed leadership in 1988. Loosen immediately implemented draconian yield restrictions, prohibited chemical fertilizers, and embraced spontaneous fermentations in neutral oak Fuder casks, frequently practicing extended lees contact. The domaine's strength rests in its holdings of ancient, ungrafted vines—many over a century old—clinging to perilous, south-facing slate amphitheaters. These steep slopes span blue Devonian slate in the Wehlener Sonnenuhr, red volcanic-slate colluvium in the Ürziger Würzgarten, and heat-retaining cliffs in the Erdener Prälat. Dr. Loosen is renowned both for crystalline, classically delicate Prädikat expressions defined by buoyant acidity and low alcohol, and for benchmark dry Grosses Gewächs bottlings that celebrate age-worthy, mineral-driven tension.