Scharzhofberger Riesling Eiswein Nr12
⏳ Drinking Window
2025 - 2080
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Fruit-based desserts such as pear tarte tatin, artisanal blue cheeses like Roquefort, or rich savory starters like duck liver pâté.
✨ Technical Specifications
Deep in the Saar valley, a tributary of the Mosel, lies the legendary Scharzhofberg vineyard, a grand cru site renowned since medieval times when it was cultivated by the monks of St. Pauli. Here, the Egon Müller estate crafts some of the world's most collectable and ethereal sweet wines. The Scharzhofberger Riesling Eiswein is a rare masterpiece born of extreme nature. It requires temperatures to plummet to at least -7 degrees Celsius so that the grapes freeze on the vine. Harvested by hand in the freezing pre-dawn hours, the frozen grapes are pressed immediately, leaving the water ice behind and extracting a tiny quantity of incredibly concentrated, high-acid nectar. The weathered Devonian slate soils of the Scharzhofberg impart a profound mineral tension that balances the intense natural sweetness of the Riesling grape, resulting in a wine of breathtaking purity, electric acidity, and legendary complexity.
🍾 About the Producer
Weingut Egon Müller-Scharzhof, established in 1797 following the secularization of monastic holdings along the Saar, stands as a paragon of classical German viticulture. Situated in Wiltingen within the cooler Mosel tributary corridor, the estate centers upon the world-renowned Scharzhofberg and Le Gallais' monopole parcel in Wiltinger Braune Kupp. These south-facing, steep amphitheaters feature weathered Devonian grey and red slate interspersed with quartzite and iron-rich veins. Viticulture follows traditional, sustainable principles emphasizing rigorous plow cultivation, absence of chemical fertilizers or herbicides, low yields, and preservation of centenarian ungrafted vines. Winemaker Egon Müller IV champions a purist, non-interventionist cellar ethos where wild yeasts, traditional neutral oak fuders, and unmanipulated fermentation dictate pace. Famed for benchmark Spätlese, Auslese, and celestial botrytized Prädikat bottlings—including world-record Trockenbeerenauslesen—the wines exude filigreed tension, soaring mineral salinity, ethereal residual sweetness, and virtually limitless longevity.