2017 Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg Ste Catherine Domaine Weinbach

The 2017 'Cuvee Sainte Catherine' Riesling is a simply stunning release from Domaine Weinbach. It has a touch more residual sugar (7.5% g/l) than the Schlossberg Grand Cru Riesling and was also aged for ten months in French oak prior to bottling. Vines for this wine are 40-60 years of age. This beautiful dry Riesling shows an unctuous texture which brings ripe white peach, wet stone, cantaloupe and copious minerals that fill the palate. With a generous mouthfeel, this finishes strong with minerals and melon tones. This sensational bottling needs at least another year in the bottle to evolve, but will cellar beautifully for decades. 2020-2040.

The purity of fruit to this wine is really something with sliced apples, peaches, lemons and hot stones. Full body. Light phenolics. Extremely long and flavorful. Fantastic. Breathtaking. Drink or hold.

Our number one wine in our top 100 was Domaine Weinbach Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Schlossberg Cuvée Ste. Catherine 2017. Its purity of fruit stood out like a brilliant star in a clear summer's night. The intense fruit flavors, density, intensity and freshness are breathtaking. Moreover, the wine's dryness and focus gives it imposing presence and structure. Our no. 1 wine also highlights how the 2017 vintage, in most cases, turned out to be a great year in Alsace for all grape types, despite the intense heat and drought during the summer. Seven of our top 10 wines were from 2017, and we are keen to tell the world how wonderful the vintage was for Alsace. The vintage may have been slightly low in quantity, but the wines show the kind of intensity, depth and finesse that we honestly didn't expect!

The 2017 Alsace Grand Cru Schlossberg Riesling Cuvée Ste Catherine is from 65-year-old vines in the middle part of the slope. Very clear, fresh and tropical on the nose, this is a dense, rich, concentrated and still slightly bitter Schlossberg with fine tannins and a long finish. It needs time." Rating: Robert Parker tildeler Weinbach 5 stjerner som producent og tilføjer; "Domaine Weinbach crafts some of the most intense wines on earth

Golden-tinged straw. Ripe pineapple, orange oil, white flowers and sweet spices on the enticing nose. Then deep, dense and multilayered, displaying superb precision to the spicy citrus fruit and herbal flavors. The finish is long and juicy. More fruity than floral but very elegant, this is made from 65-year-old vines planted at mid-slope, which is the best part of the Schlossberg Grand Cru. The wine is called "cuvée" because it's an assemblage of grapes from different plots of vines. Only about 2,000 bottles made, unfortunately.

The nose of this wine suggests subtle, creamy peach. The palate adds precision, concentration and solid stoniness, with alluring stone fruit at the core. It has elegance, poise and gentleness in spite of its firm, straight backbone. The finish is dry, concentrated and lasting. Drink until 2045.

A minerally white, dry and well-knit, with sleek acidity creating a mouthwatering impression that enlivens the nectarine, apple blossom, silvered almond and fleur de sel notes as the linger on the creamy finish.