Hofgut Falkenstein
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6 products
Located in the Saar, the estate has over 40 years of winemaking experience - Erich and his wife revitalized the Falkensteinerhof winery that had fallen into disrepair, basically by themselves from scratch starting in 1985. Today Erich and his son Johannes farm almost 13 hectares - with about 1 hectare entirely ungrafted - in the Saar; several of their plots are in highly-prized vineyards, including Euchariusberg, a once-legendary vineyard you could consider a sleeping giant.
The wines are very classic Mosel. Lively and gentle floral aromatics mixed with raw beeswax and hard slate, while the palate offers mouth-watering acidity, gentle structure and freshness that lasts a decade.
Erich and Johannes work mindfully, very similarly to the Germany of old in that there are no additions or subtractions from the wines - for ages the German wines would be chaptalized or de-acidified, in an attempt to make the wines more friendly to the gross public. You would see the labels of those who avoided these practices bearing the name "Naturwein", or "natural wine" - I guess you could say the Falkenstein wines have gotten lumped into this category; however, these are not to be taken lightly.
On the ancient German wine maps, Euchariusberg was noted as one of the finest vineyards in the Saar; today the Webers have brought the vines into extraordinary health once more, their plots at the very heart of the vineyard. The vines are mostly 40-50 years of age, but some are in excess of 90 years of age! Yields are painstakingly low - the vines trimmed to allow only one cane, or essentially only one branch of the vine to bear the entirety of that vine's energy, pouring all sorts of intensity and concentration into each grape. The vines tunnel through quartz and iron-rich gray slate which shows through the wines with a crystalline mineral tone.
Each wine bottling - referred to by "A.P." number, which is in reference to each fuder (large cask) - is individual and usually separated by plot. The grapes are gently pressed and allowed to flow via gravity into their respective casks where they are allowed to ferment naturally. From there, once the wines have reached their desired maturity in cask, the wines will be bottled directly from the fuder, without racking or any other violent movement of the juice.
In summation, these are quite possibly the most authentic wines at least of the Saar, if not a wider swath of German regions. Each bottle is individual and well worth seeking out. We treasure the ability to bring these to you, and don't anticipate them being around for long!
