Rausch Riesling Kabinett – Weingut Zilliken from the Saar
The 2018 Zilliken Rausch Riesling Kabinett is a fruit-sweet, elegant Riesling from the VDP.GROSSE LAGE of Saarburger Rausch. This delicately fruity, juicy, and enlivening Saar Riesling from the Forstmeister Geltz Zilliken winery is characterized by a vibrant interplay between fruit and acidity. The 2018 Zilliken Rausch Riesling Kabinett displays wonderful complexity in both aroma and taste, with notes of juicy peach, ripe apricot, lemon confit, grapefruit zest, fine herbal spice, and wet slate.
Zilliken Riesling Kabinett 2018 – a wine and its specifications
- 8.0% alcohol
- 58.5 g/l residual sugar
- 7.4 g/l acidity
Rausch – award-winning
- 90 points Mosel Fine Wines
- 88 Eichelmann
- 91 Vinum
- 92 Gault Millau
- 91 Falstaff
- 92 Robert Parker
- 92+ John Gilman
Its long finish reveals the concentration of the Zilliken Riesling Kabinett. On the palate, it feels weightless. With a moderate alcohol content of 8%, it is an ideal accompaniment to light dishes featuring chicken or fish, to sushi or scallops, or to spicy Asian cuisine. Although the Zilliken Riesling Kabinett is impressive even when young, it truly reveals its full potential only after 5–10 years of bottle aging. We also carry aged Rieslings from the Forstmeister Geltz Zilliken winery in our cellar for this purpose.
By the way, our cellar is cooled in the summer and heated in the winter by a geothermal heat pump powered by a photovoltaic system, ensuring the wine can age optimally. The 2011 Zilliken Rausch Riesling Kabinett was awarded 92 points and the 2017 vintage 93 points by Gault Millau, both named the best Kabinett of the year!
The 2018 vintage on the Saar
2018 was a "summer of the century" in Germany with countless hours of sunshine. It was a sunny summer without extreme heat, sparing the vines—which benefited from ample rain in May—from drought stress. Due to the consistently sunny weather, the harvest began unusually early, on September 24th. "Rarely have the vineyards been so full of such golden grapes," Dorothee Zilliken tells us. The magnificent autumn allowed for the individual berry selection required for noble-sweet Rieslings. The dry Rieslings from 2018 are juicy, mineral-driven, and accessible—tropical aromas paired with classic Saar elegance.