Rausch Riesling Spätlese – 2020

Rausch Riesling Spätlese 2020 – from the Weingut Forstmeister Geltz Zilliken estate

The 2020 Zilliken Rausch Riesling Spätlese is a fruit-sweet, graceful Riesling from the VDP.GROSSE LAGE "Saarburger Rausch". This delicately fruity, juicy, and enlivening Saar Riesling from the Forstmeister Geltz Zilliken estate is slender and lean, brimming with minerality and restrained in its fruit. It beguiles with smoky slate combined with notes of vineyard peach, dried apricot, and candied mandarin. In a year where no Auslese was bottled, this Spätlese once again demonstrates an impressive balance of sweetness and acidity. On the palate, it is pleasantly sweet and juicy, incredibly dense, with further lush peach and exotic fruit aromas. The long finish is surprisingly refreshing with a hint of mint.

Rausch Riesling Spätlese 2020 – a wine and its values

• 7.5% alcohol
• 77.4g/l residual sugar
• 7.6g/l acidity
• 92+ points Mosel Fine Wines

The long finish reveals the concentration of the Zilliken Riesling Spätlese and the potential this wine will conjure up on its long journey. With a moderate alcohol content of 7.5% and its dense aromatic profile, the Zilliken Rausch Riesling Spätlese is an excellent accompaniment to aromatic, creamy dishes such as blue cheese or braised game dishes with rich sauces. Even if this wine is thrilling while young, it will only show its full capability after 7-12 years of bottle aging. We also store matured Riesling Spätlese wines from the Weingut Forstmeister Geltz Zilliken estate from older vintages.

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 mature under optimal conditions.

2020 – the wine year on the Saar

The winter of 2019/2020 brought sufficient rainfall to replenish the water reserves in the soil. During a sunny spring, the vines suffered neither from late frost nor hail damage. Good soil management and cover cropping, which favors a vibrant humus layer, paid off in the hot summer. The soil provided the vines with enough moisture to absorb nutrients and develop acidity. As a result, the harvest could begin on September 21, 2020—the earliest start on record—and, thanks to a long-standing harvest team intimately familiar with the vineyards, healthy, perfectly ripe grapes were brought in. After gentle pressing, the fermentation of the Riesling grapes in old, meticulously maintained "Fuder" casks proceeded flawlessly. The young 2020 vintage presents itself as accessible and enlivening in the estate wine range. The village wines are full of finesse and clearly display their differences. Wines from the "Große Lagen" (Grand Cru sites) possess outstanding aging potential and are precise, elegant, and profound, characterized by the typical lightness of the Saar.