In the storied vineyards of the Rheingau, Alexander Schregel is forging his own path—one that honors tradition while boldly defying it. Raised in the vines and trained at Geisenheim, he cut his teeth managing 130 hectares at Josef Leitz before staking his claim on just 1.5 hectares in Rüdesheim’s most revered sites. He farms organically and biodynamically, harvesting by hand and letting each vintage speak for itself. In the cellar, he rejects rigid German winemaking conventions—allowing spontaneous fermentations, embracing natural fluctuations, and foregoing fining and filtration. The result? Rieslings and spätburgunders that pulse with energy, texture, and purity.

Schregel’s wines challenge expectations—so much so that German authorities refused to grant them Qualitätswein status, dismissing their hazy, unfiltered appearance. His response? A label where vineyard names are crossed out—both a quiet protest and a badge of independence. “I want to taste these wines when I’m old and have them speak to me,” he says. They will. They already do.

The steep, slate-streaked slopes of Kapellenberg have been revered since 1480, though the chapel that gave it its name has long since vanished. From this historic site on the right bank of the Rhine, Schregel coaxes a riesling that is both fiercely structured and elegantly unpolished. Fermented with indigenous yeasts, aged on lees for ten months, and bottled unfiltered, it defies the polished conventions of classic Rheingau riesling. In quiet defiance of Germany’s strict classification system, this is the aforementioned bottle in which Schregel scratched out the vineyard name on the label—a nod to both history and his insistence that great wine needs no official validation.