Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Auslese Nr59
⏳ Drinking Window
2020 - 2045
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Classic blue cheeses, spicy glazed pork belly, and fruit tarts or caramelized pear desserts.
✨ Technical Specifications
Ernst Loosen's family has cultivated vines in the Mosel for over two centuries, but few vineyards in their portfolio capture the imagination quite like the Ürziger Würzgarten, or 'spice garden of Ürzig.' Rising precipitously from the Mosel River, this vineyard is famous for its striking red volcanic sandstone and slate soils, a geological anomaly in a region dominated by blue slate. This unique terroir imparts a famously exotic, spicy character to the 100% Riesling grapes grown here, many on ungrafted vines over a century old. The Auslese Nr 59 is a highly concentrated, sweet masterpiece crafted from meticulously hand-selected, botrytis-affected grapes. Fermented in traditional large oak Fuder casks, it beautifully balances rich tropical fruit sweetness with a fiery, mineral-driven acidity and a complex herbal finish that echoes the vineyard's legendary name.
🍾 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.