About The Wine
Stein’s “1900” bottling is one of the more extraordinary wines of the Mosel. Here we have a historic site, the second oldest producing Riesling vineyard in the Mosel with just over 1,000 vines planted in the year 1900 (thus the name of the cuvée). This is a vineyard UlliStein tends like a garden. The wine is fermented in neutral barrel and Stein allows it to find its own balance.
Tasting notes are hard in this case; what is truly extraordinary about this wine is simply the breadth of what it offers, which, in the simplest terms, is something like everything. Allow the wine to unfurl (decanting is a good idea, or just give the bottle a few hours to open) and it is one of the most exotic, perfumed wines of the Mosel; explosively aromatic, crushed flowers and slate, ripe, luscious, glycerin-rich stone fruits, layer after layer like a mille-feuille of apricot, quince and slate.
About Ulli Stein
While Dr. Ulrich "Ulli" Stein’s wines are not widely known in the Australia, he has nothing less than a fanatical following in Europe. He farms meaningful parcels of land that have a few important things in common: They are not easy to work. They are commercially unknown. And, most importantly, Ulli loves them.
In fact, Stein is more than a winemaker – he is a passionate advocate for the traditional, steep, slate vineyards of the Mosel. In 2010, Ulli published a manifesto warning of the threats to the region’s 2000-year-old viticultural tradition. Winemaking with Ulli is refreshingly light on “style,” instead focusing on what the vineyards say to him.
Certainly there is a focus on wines that are dry; lightness and zip are more important than gobs of fruit. Complexity is good, but not at the expense of the whole – better to be simple and well done than overdone and, well, a mess. Cut is more important than size.
Snapshot
Region: Mosel
Country: Germany
Vintage: 2021
Alcohol: 11%
Size: 750ml
Closure: Cork
Variety: Riesling
