The Schätzel family has been farming vineyards along the Rhine for 650 years, drawn to the idea that wine could capture the essence of place. Today, their steep red slate vineyards on the Roter Hang yield wines of striking minerality and structure. “Give nature her space” is their guiding principle, and it shows in the calm, confident pace of their cellar and the quiet clarity of their wines.

The Steiner Solera is something else entirely. This is a riesling solera from the grand cru slopes of Ölberg, Hipping, and Pettenthal, aged under flor and blended across seven vintages. It’s a wine that almost shouldn’t exist, and yet here it is: singular, seamless, and fully alive.

The solera was started in 2017 and is refreshed by half each year. Grapes are foot-crushed and pressed, then fermented and aged in large old oak barrels. First in 1,200-liter Stück, then in a 5,000-liter cask where the wines slowly evolve together under flor. The 2023 bottling contains wine from every vintage between 2017 and 2023, with an average barrel age of 39 months. There are no additions, no corrections, and absolutely no filtration.

The result is a bone-dry riesling of remarkable depth and stability. Flint, sea salt, macadamia, and dried apricot meet umami and spice in a frame that feels both weightless and grounded. There’s autolytic complexity, citrus snap, and a focused mineral core. It’s savory and tensile, yet welcoming, and it tastes like nothing else in Germany. And yes, there may be more famous rieslings out there, but there is nothing quite like this.

...

These wines are pre-arrival with an estimated arrival date of late fall. During warmer months orders are placed on hold, your wines will ship as weather permits and the daily range is consistently between 45 and 74 degrees. Please note pre-arrival sales are non-refundable as suppliers require us to make binding commitments and deposits to secure the wine.