2025 Weingut Max Fred. Richter, Riesling Trocken, Richter Dry Riesling, Mosel, Germany.
I got to taste this new release with Constantin Richter, of the Weingut Max Ferdinand Richter, in New York, and loved the crystalline purity, mineral tones and crisp dry detailing, this is a killer bottle for the price and I highly recommend all the 2025s to come as well. Beautifully aromatic, this Richter Dry Riesling is their entry level calling card Trocken and it punches well under its weight class with racy, steely and rewarding layers of wild peach, subtle tropical fruits, green tart apple, lime and zesty kiwi fruits, along with delicate smoky/flinty stone, white blossoms, chamomile, verbena and a dusting of spices. Light framed, but concentrated, highlighting the vintage’s depth and personality, which Richter captured in excellent and transparent fashion, making for delightful easy to Riesling, but with an underlying sense of seriousness. Sourced from the young wines within Richter’s impressive set of Premier Cru (Erste Lagen) vineyards, this delicious bottling saw a cold settling of the juice, with spontaneous yeast, and cold fermented until bone dry and was aged a short time on the lees to add a bit of mouth feel.
Located in Mülheim an der Mosel, set above the River, is the Weingut Max Ferdinand Richter winery, which has been owned by the Richter family for more than 300 years, as mentioned before, and makes some of the Mosel’s most compelling wines. The Richter Estate mansion and its Frenchbaroque garden were built in 1774, and the winery buildings, built in 1880, and as the winery notes, boasts one of the largest fuder oak barrel wine cellars in the whole Mosel area. Richter is focused on purely on Riesling, grown in the heart of the central Mosel area with total holdings of 43 acres and an annual production of about 10,500 cases, much of which is exported throughout the world. Richter has some incredible vineyard holdings, such as Erdener Treppchen, Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Graacher Himmelreich, and Brauneberger Juffer, but also two coveted sites, Mülheimer Helenenkloster and the noted monopoleVeldenzer Elisenberg, seen in this wine. The terroirs play a huge role in the distinction of each of their wines, with steep vineyard sites mostly on weathered grey slate, along with, what the winery says are different compositions of ferruginous (Brauneberg), mineral quartz (Veldenz), or clay soils (Graach, Erden, Wehlen, Mülheim), adding to the complexity in the bottles, with the classic slate notes seen here. I tasted a selection of ’23, ’24 and a few 25s, all of which were exceptional from Richter and I highly recommend both the dry and off-dry Rieslings here!
($20 Est.) 91 Points, grapelive