100% Riesling

Food pairings: Shellfish, egg dishes, fresh cheeses and seasonal vegetable plates.

Winemaking: Everything is done by hand in the vineyard, and in the cellar the wine is left to find its own way. The grapes are picked early to keep their high natural acidity, and the juice ferments spontaneously in small used barrels chosen so that no taste of wood shows. The 2023 was fermented and matured on its lees for 16 months before bottling without filtration, an extended élevage that gives the wine its fine, satiny texture.

Vineyards and terroir: Julien Renard farms terraced slate vineyards around Winningen in the Terrassenmosel, the lower Mosel near Koblenz and the confluence with the Rhine, including sites in Winningen's Domgarten, Hamm, Röttgen and Uhlen. These cliff-like terraces are among the most demanding in the Mosel to work, and Julien believes the extreme physical labor is an essential part of the quality of his wines.

Family and history: Born to a French father and a German mother, Julien Renard grew up north of Cologne and did not grow up around wine; his first love was the theater. He came to wine for the physical work, apprenticed at Heymann-Löwenstein in Winningen and founded his own small estate there in 2017. He is part of a new generation of Mosel growers making needle-fine, dry wines with incisive acidity, and the Riesling is his signature bottling, the heart of the estate.