🍷 Weingut Robert Weil

Weingut Robert Weil is a wine estate in Kiedrich in the Rheingau, on the slopes below the Taunus. According to the estate, its founder Dr. Robert Weil (1843–1923), then a professor of German at the Sorbonne in Paris, bought his first vineyards on the Kiedricher Berg in 1867. Forced to leave France before the Franco-Prussian War, he acquired the manor of the English baronet Sir John Sutton in Kiedrich and settled there in 1875. The estate is run today by his great-grandson Wilhelm Weil.

According to the estate, all of its 90 ha are planted with Riesling and farmed organically. The main sites are three steep slopes around the village: Klosterberg, Turmberg (a 3.8 ha monopole) and Gräfenberg. The wines range from dry to naturally sweet, and the estate says it has picked every Prädikat level up to Trockenbeerenauslese in each vintage since 1989.

According to the estate, the three Kiedrich sites are steep slopes facing southwest, with gradients of up to 60% and elevations of up to 240 m. The soils are stony and contain phyllite, a metamorphic clay slate, with some loess loam. The estate also says the 1971 wine law merged the Turmberg into the Wasseros site, and it was reinstated as a single vineyard in 2005. The name Gräfenberg appears, as Grevenberg, in documents from 1258 and 1259.

Rheingau is a protected designation of origin (PDO) of the EU, protected since 1973. Under the German Wine Act, a Prädikatswein – Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese or Eiswein – receives its Prädikat only on application, with an official test number; a Kabinett may not be enriched.

Why it matters to you. The Prädikat describes the grapes at harvest – late-picked, selected, noble-rotten or frozen – and the test number on the label shows the wine passed the official check. The WHO reminds: there is no safe level of alcohol.