Every year we devote great energy and attention to our vines and grapes in order to be in a position to offer you wines that best reflect the authentic regional Riesling of the Middle Rhine slate. For this purpose we invest approx. 750 hours/hectare in steep-slope cultivation and approx. 250 hours/hectare in careful, selective grape picking, done exclusively by hand.
Until 2005 we also used natural cork to seal our wine bottles.
Unfortunately, every year natural cork produces up to 4% cork taint in the wines. This is the “normal” defect rate, which cork suppliers also claim is a quantity that is unavoidable and does not warrant a complaint!
As a result you, and we, lose 500 to 600 litres of wine annually, despite using the supposedly best corks.
It was this state of affairs that led us to check out alternatives to natural cork.
To put it briefly:
We are no longer willing to sacrifice our meticulously and lovingly produced wine to an incalculable seal!
So since the 2006 vintage, we have been offering our complete range of wines with screw caps. This has additional advantages. The seal with the integrated metal skirt, or wine capsule, is easy to open and close again, and it keeps our Rieslings fresh for longer than was possible until now.
The seal gasket consists of a foodstuff-tested PE insert, whose gas permeability is effectively reduced by a layer of tin. As a result, the oxygen admission into the wines remains small and the maturing process during storage is slightly delayed.
Up till now we have achieved the same effect by sealing the corks of the wines for our “private treasure chamber” with wax.
We are fully convinced that this seal is the best thing that can currently happen to wine!
So nowadays all our wines are sealed using this system.
Recycling can be done in the bottle bank nearest to where you live