Niersteiner Oelberg Riesling Eiswein
⏳ Drinking Window
2025 - 2060
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Blue cheese, fruit-based tarts, foie gras
✨ Technical Specifications
Gunderloch's Niersteiner Oelberg Riesling Eiswein is a rare liquid masterpiece born from a high-stakes gamble with nature. The Oelberg vineyard, situated on the famous 'Roter Hang' (Red Slope) of Rheinhessen, features a unique composition of red clay-slate and limestone that imparts a distinct mineral tension to the grapes. To craft this Eiswein, healthy Riesling grapes are left on the vine deep into the winter months, risking destruction by frost, rot, or hungry wildlife. When temperatures finally plummet to at least -7°C (often in the freezing pre-dawn hours of December or January), the grapes are hand-harvested and immediately pressed while still frozen. This process leaves the water behind as ice, yielding a tiny quantity of highly concentrated, nectar-like juice. The resulting wine is a breathtaking tightrope walk between luscious, honeyed sweetness and a piercing, electric acidity that ensures the wine never feels heavy.
🍾 About the Producer
Founded in 1890 by banker Carl Gunderloch, Weingut Gunderloch is an esteemed estate located in Nackenheim along the Rhine in Germany's Rheinhessen region. Now meticulously stewarded across generations by the Hasselbach family, the estate is renowned for its historic holdings in the steep, red-slate terraces of the famous Roter Hang, particularly the grand cru Nackenheimer Rothenberg. Practicing attentive, terroir-focused viticulture, the winery crafts exceptional, mineral-driven Rieslings that span crystalline dry single-vineyard bottlings to legendary, long-lived noble sweet dessert wines such as Auslese and Trockenbeerenauslese. Gunderloch remains a benchmark of Rheinhessen winemaking, celebrated globally for its pure fruit expression, tension, and vibrant acidity.