Markus Molitor Zeltinger Himmelreich Riesling Kabinett 2016

Markus Molitor took over his family's estate in 1984 at age twenty, the eighth generation of his family to make wine on the Mosel, and has since built it into one of the river's largest family-owned wineries, some 120 hectares farmed from Haus Klosterberg near Zeltingen. His parcels in Zeltinger Himmelreich occupy steep sections of finely splintered blue Devonian slate, and the winemaking is exacting: soft crushing, several hours on the skins, fermentation with natural yeasts in stainless steel, then a rest on the lees. Kabinett, the lightest of the Prädikats, shows the house's precision, with grapefruit and yellow peach over white flowers, herbs, and fine spice, a silky yet zesty palate, and the vivid acidity this deep grey slate reliably gives. The 2016 arrives with nearly a decade of bottle age already banked.