Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling BA
⏳ Drinking Window
2026 - 2070
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Classic blue cheeses such as Roquefort or Stilton, traditional fruit tarts and stone fruit galettes, and rich savory starters like duck liver pâté.
✨ Technical Specifications
The Zeltinger Sonnenuhr, or 'sundial of Zeltingen,' is one of the Mosel's most revered grand cru vineyards, famous for its dizzyingly steep slopes and ancient Devonian blue slate soils. Markus Molitor, a visionary who took over his family domain in 1984, crafts this Beerenauslese (BA) through an incredibly laborious process of hand-selecting individual, botrytis-affected Riesling grapes. The sundial itself, erected in the vineyard during the 19th century to guide workers through their grueling days, stands as a monument to the extreme viticulture practiced here. This noble sweet wine showcases a breathtaking tension between luscious, honeyed concentration and the piercing, slate-driven acidity characteristic of the Middle Mosel. Fermented with wild yeasts and aged in neutral oak fuder, it represents the pinnacle of traditional Mosel winemaking.
🍾 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.