Trocken Riesling, Stein 'Blauschiefer'

Dr. Uhlrich ‘Ulli’ Stein, and now his young protégé Philip Lardot, farms meaningful parcels of land that have a few important things in common: They are not easy to work. They are commercially unknown and therefore barely financially viable. Finally, and most importantly: Ulli has to love them. Stein is more than a winemaker – he is a passionate advocate for the traditional, steep, slate vineyards of the Mosel. Winemaking with Ulli is refreshingly light on style, on some idea projected into the vineyards, and more about what the vineyards say to him. Certainly, there is a focus on wines that are dry; lightness and zip are more important than gobs of fruit. Cut is more important than size. One last note of importance, due to his belief in the importance of old vines the family never grafted to phylloxera resistant rootstock in the 70s when this practice was the norm. So Ulli now has a profound collection of ungraded vines, farming around 10% of the ungraded vines in all of Germany. In 2016 the young Philip Lardot moved to the Mosel and was taken in by Ulli. Philip found a mentor and a deep connection to the Mosel in Ulli Stein; meanwhile Ulli found just the right person to carry the torch at this curious estate.

The Blauschiefer fruit is sourced from old vines over 75+ year old ungraded vines) in and around the St. Aldegunder Himmelreich, which is Ulli’s ‘1er Cru’ vineyard on mostly blue slate.

Trocken, German for dry, is a classification of German wine that indicates a wine that is dry rather than off-dry (halbtrocken), sweeter (lieblich) or sweet (süß). Trocken wines are not devoid of residual sugar, but have, at most, a few grams per liter, which can be perceptible but is not overtly sweet.