Erdener Treppchen Riesling Auslese
⏳ wine.drinking_window
Typically best enjoyed 10 to 40 years from the vintage release, as it develops profound complexity with age.
🍽️ wine.food_pairings
Blue cheese, spicy Thai curry, glazed pork belly
✨ wine.spec_sheet
The Erdener Treppchen, meaning 'little staircase' of Erden, is one of the Mosel's most dramatic and historic grand cru vineyards. Its name derives from the stone steps carved directly into the near-vertical cliffs to assist vineyard workers. Unlike the blue slate found elsewhere in the region, Erdener Treppchen is characterized by iron-rich red slate soils, which impart an extraordinarily vibrant, spicy, and exotic mineral character to the Riesling grapes. Markus Molitor coaxes incredible depth from this site through meticulous hand-harvesting, often selecting grapes affected by noble rot for his Auslese bottlings. Fermented spontaneously in traditional neutral oak Fuder casks, this Riesling Auslese is a masterclass in tension, balancing intense, honeyed stone fruit and tropical notes with a laser-like, slate-driven acidity.
🍾 wine.about_producer
Taking over his family's estate in 1984 at just twenty years old, Markus Molitor set out to restore the Mosel region's historic prestige through uncompromising quality and traditional craftsmanship. Based at the historic Haus Klosterberg in Bernkastel-Kues, the winery meticulously farms steep, slate-rich vineyards across the Mosel and Saar, utilizing extremely late hand-harvesting and spontaneous fermentation in neutral oak Fuder casks. Molitor is globally renowned for his precise, mineral-driven Rieslings—distinguished by white, green, and gold capsules indicating dryness levels—as well as his structured, elegant Spätburgunder. This obsessive dedication to terroir has earned the estate numerous perfect 100-point scores, cementing its status as an icon of German winemaking.