Winninger Schieferterrassen Riesling Auslese
⏳ Drinking Window
2022 - 2038
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
blue cheese, fruit-based tarts, spicy glazed duck
✨ Technical Specifications
Hailing from the dizzying, gravity-defying cliffs of the Terrassenmosel, the Winninger Schieferterrassen Riesling Auslese is a testament to extreme viticulture. The grapes are harvested from the estate's steep, slate-terraced vineyards in Winningen, where ancient Devonian slate soils absorb the daytime sun and radiate warmth back to the vines at night. This Auslese is crafted from meticulously hand-selected, botrytis-affected grapes. In the cellar, the Löwenstein family employs low-intervention methods, allowing spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts in traditional large oak casks. The result is a noble sweet Riesling of profound complexity, where luscious notes of honeyed stone fruit, exotic spices, and candied citrus are brilliantly balanced by a striking, mineral-driven acidity and a distinct smoky, salty slate finish that reflects its dramatic origin.
🍾 About the Producer
Weingut Heymann-Löwenstein was founded in 1980 by Reinhard Löwenstein and Cornelia Heymann-Löwenstein in Winningen, revitalizing centuries of familial viticultural heritage in the Terrassenmosel. Championing the dramatic, steeply terraced slopes along the lower Mosel, the estate tends approximately 14 hectares of dry-stone wall vineyards tilted up to 80 percent gradients. The viticultural terroir centers on heterogeneous Devonian slate formations, distinguished into blue-gray slate, iron-rich red slate, and fossil-infused calcareous slate. Winemaking adheres to an uncompromising, artisanal ethos: hand-harvested grapes undergo native-yeast fermentation in traditional wooden Fuder casks without additions, followed by long contact with fine lees and late bottling up to 24 months post-harvest. Member of the VDP since 1997, the estate excels in dense, bone-dry, age-worthy Grosses Gewächs bottlings from benchmark crus like Winninger Uhlen—divided into Roth Lay, Laubach, and Blaufüsser Lay—as well as Röttgen, Kirchberg, and the harmonious regional cuvée Schieferterrassen.
🍇 Grapes
Riesling