Steeger St. Jost Riesling Kabinett halbtrocken Weingut Ratzenberger
If Sue were roasting a ham on Sunday, this is the wine I would open: a full-bodied, aristocratic, honey and white peach scented Mittelrhein Riesling with plenty of appetizing acidity, incredible minerality, and just enough perceptible sweetness to complement the salt and substance of the ham.

This is a gleaming Kabinett halbtrocken from a perfect vintage, grown on the side of a mountain of black Devon slate that the Romans named  Bacchi Ara  (the altar of Bacchus). A hundred years ago, Rieslings like this were more expensive than classified Bordeaux and Premiers Crus Burgundies. Today they are the most undervalued wines in the world.

Weingut Ratzenberger:
Perfect timing and dumb luck brought Frank and me to Weingut Ratzenberger on a rainy afternoon in July of 2000. Jochen and his father (also Jochen) had just ended their relationship with their previous American importer, so the incredible wines we tasted that day were available for us to buy. Since then, they have become iconic Moore Brothers staples, and it is no hyperbole to tell you that they are some of the finest white wines made anywhere in the world.

I admit that I’m biased. I have never stayed in a hotel in Bacharach, and Jochen has always had a home with us when he is in Philadelphia. And during her graduate fellowship at the University of Würzburg in 2005 and 2006, our daughter Kate took two trains to Bacharach every Friday afternoon, to go “home” to the two little girls waiting for their weekend big sister. They still ask for her. We have mutually adopted each other’s families.

This wine:
At first, there are apple and Asian pear aromas, with a hint of cumin and baking spices. Then the wine unfurls, adding bitter honey, white peach, and hint of fresh black truffle. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, with honey, pink grapefruit, and wet stone, along with perceptible sweetness in tension with firm, ripe acidity. Bright, refreshing, and compelling, even the empty glass smells great the next day.

Drink now – 2030 (!) Yes, Mittelrhein Rieslings include some of the most age-worthy natural wines in the world. One of the most memorable that I ever tasted was a miraculous, exotic-tea scented   Steeger St. Jost Riesling Kabinett halbtrocken 1970,  drunk with Jochen in the rose garden at the bottom of the vineyard one evening in 2001.

As always at Moore Brothers, this wine was shipped and delivered to us in refrigerated containers, so it tastes as fresh as when I tasted it with Jochen and his father last April in their cellar in Bacharach.

I thank you again for your participation in the stewardship of this two thousand year-old heritage.

Greg Moore