Heerkretz Riesling – 2021

Discover the Award-Winning Heerketz Riesling from Weingut Steitz

The Heerkretz Riesling 2021 from Weingut Steitz is a mineral-rich single-vineyard wine from Rheinhessen. Recently awarded 92 points by Vinum Riesling Champion in the single-vineyard dry category.

Take your time with this single-vineyard Riesling and pour it into a large glass so it can open up and show you what it's made of. Slowly, notes of citrus, herbs, and wet stone will waft from the glass. On the palate, the Heerkretz Riesling shows great intensity, with its wonderful acidity providing liveliness in the mouth. Here again, complex aromas of grapefruit, lemon zest, sea buckthorn, and bergamot meet cool exoticism, smoky flint, a delicate herbal spice, and intense salinity.

The Steitz Heerkretz Riesling is powerful and elegant, stringent and multifaceted, and will surely benefit from a few more years of bottle aging. Even now, it pairs well with pasta with salmon and lemon sauce, couscous with preserved lemon and corn-fed poulard, cod in an egg-herb crust with young potatoes.

Heerkretz Single Vineyard in Rheinhessen

The 14 hectares of vineyards belonging to Weingut Steitz in Rheinhessen are spread around the wine villages of Stein-Bockenheim, Siefersheim, and Fürfeld, protected from heavy rainfall by the Donnersberg mountain. In the Heerkretz single vineyard, at about 250m above sea level, one of the highest elevations in Rheinhessen with optimal conditions for complex cool-climate wines, the vines for the premium Heerkretz Riesling grow on volcanic rock soils. The weathered porphyry causes the topsoil to dry out quickly, forcing the vines to reach deep, while the cool wind ensures acidity-preserving ripening phases, which gives the Riesling bite, salty minerality, and an unmistakable character.

Grown on porphyry, the Riesling grapes are a selection from the Heerkretz single vineyard. After hand-harvesting and slow fermentation, a long period of lees aging followed, 100% in large wooden barrels. Thus, the elegant Heerkretz Riesling best showcases its terroir.

Riesling – A Wine and its Values

• Origin Wine from Germany
• Growing Region Rheinhessen
• Single Vineyard Heerkretz
• Grape Variety Riesling
• 12% vol Alcohol
• 7.5 g/l Acidity
• 2.1 g/l Residual Sugar

Weingut Christian und Diana Steitz

Christian and Diana Steitz have big plans for the coming years. In 2015, nine years ago, the two completely took over the winery from Christian's parents. It began with a redesign of the labels and a new website. This was followed by major renovations at the winery and the newly designed guest rooms, but the change went much deeper. Christian Steitz found his own style, increasingly pursuing more natural methods in winemaking, experimenting with orange wines and Prädikatsweine. It's been a great development that we've had the pleasure of observing for over 15 years. Straightforward, unadorned, and authentic, with a clear focus on the essentials—these are the wines from Weingut Steitz. Keep up the good work. Weingut Steitz is a member of Maxime Herkunft Rheinhessen.