Weingut Vereinigte Hospitien Riesling Scharzhofberger Grosses Gewächs Trocken 2021

Glorious and historic vineyard...check. Germany’s oldest cellar...check. Winery founded hundreds of years ago by NAPOLEON?! Check, as well. This spectacular, bone-dry riesling is something special to behold, with a pedigree that is tough to beat! 97 POINTS is a serious score...at our price of UNDER $50? Celebrate National Riesling Day properly, good people!

Vereinigte Hospitien. It's a typical German mouthful, I know, but just think of it as United Hospices...one of the truly great producers in all of Germany. These guys were literally founded by NAPOLEON back in 1804 as a social endowment strategically placed along the El Camino pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela and the Hospice of St. James. Their named vineyards go back to the Middle Ages, with their cellar dating back to 330 AD! That’s the oldest in Germany...by a ways. Their home base is located in the heart of Trier, Germany’s oldest city – in a former Roman Imperial residence at the center of Mosel wine.

This is from the revered site of Scharzhofberger – considered one of the greatest riesling vineyards in the world and a staple in the iconic Egon Müller portfolio (more on that later.). Originally planted by the Romans around 250 A.D., this is one of the finest examples of a northern vineyard in the Mosel – a 300-meter slope that rises like a barricade along the river bank. The German wine control board, called V.D.P., designated this site as Grosse Lage – the very top classification of German vineyards. For reference, Egon Müller’s rieslings from this site typically sell for $250 plus, but we’re talking UNDER $50 here. That’s a steal, friends.

This wine is further designated as “G.G.”, or Grosses Gewächs – which is part Champagne “Special Club” Collection and part Burgundy grand cru… considered as perhaps the top designation for dry German Riesling. All Grosses Gewächs wines come from a Grosses Lage (‘great site’) according to the German VDP classification system overseen by a group of producers called the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP). Like the grand crus of Burgundy, these wines take the name of the vineyard and not the village. However, more akin to a “Special Club” Champagne, the VDP “G.G.” is an invitation-only, industry body numbering around 200 producers, and its rules are not officially part of German wine law. There are limited yields, harvesting methods, and overall grape ripeness requirements, and the resulting wine must be dry in order to qualify, with the wines all being released on September 1st one year following harvest.

This 97 POINT stunner is everything I want in dry German Riesling – low alcohol, ripping acidity, abundant minerality, and perfectly ripe fruits that really make everything POP! Bursting with a bushel of orchard fruits – apples, pears, golden plums, with flinty river rocks, orange blossom, white pepper, and zip, vim, and electric vivacity! This is a treat...and one that will age for decades, too, though we certainly wouldn’t blame you for opening up a few bottles now...it’s that good. We’re the only folks in the country to have this spectacular wine, so load up and thank us later!

PAIRING IDEAS: One of my all-time favorite scallop preparations...and this is the perfect wine to complement it! Scallop crudo, with some lime zest, matcha salt, a few drops of pumpkin seed oil, and a base puree of braised green apples and celeriac. Simply divine. If you don’t feel up to recreating this at home, no bother...try this scallop crudo instead!