Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Auslese
⏳ Drinking Window
2025 - 2055
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Strong blue cheeses like Roquefort, spicy Sichuan or Thai cuisine, and fruit-based desserts like apple tart.
✨ Technical Specifications
Hailing from the Mosel's iconic, amphitheater-like cliffs, the Urziger Wurzgarten—or 'spice garden of Urzig'—is legendary for its striking red volcanic and slate soils, a geological anomaly in a region dominated by blue slate. This unique terroir imparts a famously exotic, spicy, and tropical character to the 100% Riesling grapes. Under the stewardship of Ernst Loosen, this Auslese is crafted from late-harvested, hand-selected clusters, often touched by noble rot. Fermented with native yeasts in traditional, large oak Fuder casks, the wine beautifully balances luscious sweetness with a vibrant, electric acidity. The folklore of the 'spice garden' comes alive in every glass, showcasing a centuries-old winemaking heritage defined by extreme steep-slope viticulture.
🍾 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.
🍇 Grapes
100% Riesling