Meet (fall in love with) the Wines of Weiser-Kuenstler
2/21/11 -
As anyone close to me can attest, I haven’t stopped talking about the wines of Weiser-Kuenstler since I returned from Germany. When I sat down with Alexandra to taste, I had a cursory awareness of what this estate was up to, but as we progressed with the wines, I was pleasantly startled to find my notes accelerating with giddiness! The first wine was marked “very, very good," the second received a coveted check mark, the third the top note of praise – three check marks - and the fourth (08 Ellergrub Kabinett) – a definitive phrase: “wine of the trip.” I hadn’t even gotten to the Spatlese yet!
The Weiser-Kuenstler project began in 2005, born of the passionate vision of husband and wife team Konstantin Weiser and Alexandra Kuenstler. True, this estate is only just launching, but these wines are already soaring, and with their New York debut, we wanted to be first out of the gate to emphatically sing their praises! There is enormous talent and heart at this young estate, not to mention an admirable intention — these are real, joyous, terroir-driven wines of character that are not just delicious to drink, but are living efforts to give voice and protection to the Mosel’s great, unheralded, endangered steep slate sites.
Konstantin takes the lead in the cellar, while Alexandra manages the estate’s affairs; but both are devoted laborers to the vineyards. Part of the Klitzekleine Ring, a small group dedicated to the preservation of old-vine, terraced sites along the Mosel, Weiser-Kuenstler’s wines are born of fruit from old, low-yielding, largely ungrafted vines on steep terraced slate slopes. The estate comprises three hectares, all planted with Riesling, in the vineyards Enkircher Ellergrub, Enkircher Steffensberg, Enkircher Zeppwingert and Trabener Gaispfad.
Flowers, bushes, plants, and micro-organisms—the flora and fauna that are crucial to any real concept of terroir—are thriving components of Weiser-Kuenstler’s sites. Alexandra and Konstantin want a living, vibrant, diverse vineyard and see it as part of their responsibility to protect the ecosystem and maintain its balance. They use no herbicides or pesticides. Machines cannot be used for vineyard work, since the terraces and the vineyards’ steepness do not allow for them to pass through. Instead, the soil is worked by hand, with a hoe, or occasionally with a Wingertsknecht (“vineyard farmhand”), an antiquated tool with a two-stroke engine and winches, which is used to smooth and break up the soil.
The work in the cellar is one of allowance for terroir expression – all start and almost all finish with indigenous-yeast fermentation (some of the dry wines get a little boost), which takes place in their particularly cool cellar. They use a combination of stainless steel and old oak Fuder depending on the wine, and rest on their fine lees for several months in order to allow their character to develop fully before bottling relatively late.
The emphasis at Weiser-Kuenstler is on the creation of light, lilting, low-alcohol wines with noticeable residual sugar that’s always in balance. They are finely detailed, mineral-driven (the Ellergrub site having a wonderfully chalky mineral texture), and subtly, compellingly fruity. My emphatic recommendation for these wines does not come because I claim to be a visionary or a Master of Anything, but these wines humbly remind me of the sort of beauty I can be in service of. No dabbler, drinker, lover, or connoisseur of Riesling should hesitate in getting to know these wines.
Cheers, RSG
thanks to Dan Melia of Mosel Wine Merchant for his assistance in researching and writing this article!