Country: Germany
Region: Rheinhessen
Grape: Scheurebe and Gelber Muskateller
Viticulture: Biodynamic Farming and Natural Wine
Wine making: Hand harvested grapes are destemmed and go through a 4 week maceration in epoxy-lined fiberglass tanks. Indigenous yeasts used with ambient temperatures for fermentation in oak barrels. The wine spend 14 months on it's lees before being bottled unfined, unfiltered with a very small addition of SO2.
This very fine natural wine is aromatically seductive with the Muskateller providing the floral foreground, but it also has flavours of golden orchard fruit, lees-spice and a whiff of sherry.
The Schmitt winery has been in the family for over 230 years with Bianka and Daniel working their 16 hectares for the last decade. They work in full biodynamics which they learned from Alsace vigneron Patrick Meyer and are one of only 80 producers in Germany to be Demeter certified. The Rheinhessen is one of the driest of all German regions and Wonnegau belongs to the sunniest and driest part of it. The most important vineyards of called Frauenberg and Goldberg, where very large limestone pieces form a bedrock under 30-40 cm of loess and clay. 16 hectares are spread over numerous parcels in three different villages: Florsheim-Dalsheim; Monsheim and Kriegsheim. The maximum elevation of the vineyard in 230 m above sea level.