Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Spatlese
⏳ Drinking Window
2024 - 2040
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Spicy Thai or Sichuan dishes, roasted pork belly, and blue cheeses.
✨ Technical Specifications
The Ürziger Würzgarten, or 'spice garden of Ürzig,' is one of the Mosel's most dramatic and unique vineyards. Rising precipitously from the river on a sheer, amphitheater-like slope of up to 70% gradient, its terroir is defined by a rare pocket of iron-rich red volcanic soil and slate, contrasting sharply with the blue slate found elsewhere in the region. This unique geology imparts a remarkably exotic, spicy character to the 100% Riesling grapes grown here, many of which come from ancient, ungrafted vines. Ernst Loosen of the historic Dr. Loosen estate coaxes this terroir into a brilliant Spätlese (late-harvest) style, utilizing traditional fermentation in large, neutral oak casks to preserve the wine's vibrant, natural acidity and intense fruit profile. The result is a legendary white wine that beautifully balances luscious sweetness with a fiery, mineral-driven tension.
🍾 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