2022 Robert Weil ‘Monte Nostrum’ Rheingau

JS99 This super-racy and super-mineral dry riesling with its extremely fine white peach, wild flower and herb aromas is an archetypical expression of the steep, high-altitude vineyards of Kiedrich. Stunning crystalline finish that takes your breath away and pulls you inexorably back to the glass for more of this elixir that’s simultaneously strong and delicate. This wine used to be marketed under the name Burg Scharfensteiner. Great aging potential. Drink from release.
WA96 The 2022 Monte Nostrum follows the Burg Scharfensteiner and is congruent with this former cru whose name was canceled in 1971 and re-introduced with the 2020, yet it had to change its name due to German impeachment. The name goes back to a document from 1160 that has the Schaufenstein castle named as Castellum Monti, but this name also couldn’t be used due to another veto, now from Italy. However, Monte Nostrum is the legally accepted name now, and it’s a good complement to the prestigious Monte Vacano from a special plot in the Gräfenberg.
The Monte Nostrum Riesling is sourced from the upper part of the Turmberg, so on pure phyllite slate, and will be sold exclusively via negociants in Bordeaux for at least 69 euros starting in September 2024. The 2022 opens with a pure, refined and coolish, stony/saline and citric bouquet of crushed stones and is remarkably precise. Lean, refined and elegant on the palate but also dense and intense, this is a pure, vibrantly fresh and mineral, savory and seriously structured Riesling from Kiedrich’s coolest spot outside the forest. Sharp as a knife, it is an incomparable, very long and even concentrated yet never big or fleshy Rheingau Riesling with no similarity to any other location in the Rheingau but maybe to the Saar (Wiltingen) or, as Weil says, Breuer’s Nonnenberg in term of its quiet flow. It was bottled in mid-August this year with only two grams per liter of residual sugar. 13% stated alcohol. Natural cork. Tasted at the domaine in August 2023.