Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Auslese 1*
⏳ Drinking Window
2025 - 2045
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Classic blue cheeses such as Roquefort, rich duck liver pâté, and fruit-based desserts like glazed apricot or peach tarts.
✨ Technical Specifications
Markus Molitor, often dubbed 'Mr. 100 Points,' is a titan of the Mosel, famous for resurrecting the historic grandeur of the region's steep, slate-riddled slopes. The Graacher Himmelreich vineyard, meaning 'Kingdom of Heaven,' sits adjacent to the famous Wehlener Sonnenuhr, benefiting from deep Devonian blue slate soils and excellent water-retaining clay veins. This unique terroir imparts a distinct, vibrant minerality and juicy stone-fruit character to the Riesling. Molitor's '1-Star' Auslese represents a meticulous selection of highly ripe, partially botrytized grapes, hand-harvested on dizzyingly steep slopes. Fermented slowly with wild yeasts in traditional large oak casks, this wine beautifully balances rich, honeyed concentration with a laser-like, electric acidity that is the hallmark of the Middle Mosel.
🍾 About the Producer
Founded in 1984 when twenty-year-old Markus Molitor assumed control of his family's winemaking legacy, Weingut Markus Molitor has evolved into an undisputed titan of the Mosel. Based at Haus Klosterberg, Molitor manages over 100 hectares encompassing premier steep-slope crus along both the Middle Mosel and Saar, including Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Ürziger Würzgarten, Erdener Prälat, and Scharzhofberg. Viticulture is strictly manual on precipitous gradients of weathered Devonian blue, red, and grey slate. Molitor pursues an uncompromising philosophy centered on sustainable farming, late selective harvesting, native yeast fermentation, and prolonged aging on fine lees in traditional wooden Fuders carved into subterranean slate cellars. Renowned for its singular capsule coding system—white indicating dry, green denoting feinherb (off-dry), and gold designating noble sweet expressions, often tiered with asterisks—the estate crafts crystalline, hyper-mineral Rieslings of monumental depth and aging potential, alongside site-expressive Pinot Noir and Weissburgunder.