100% Riesling

Food pairings: A lovely aperitif, and a fine partner for spicy and Asian dishes, sushi and rich, creamy cheeses.

Winemaking: Healthy, ripe grapes were picked by hand in late October 2024 at 87° Oechsle. After gentle pressing, the wine fermented under temperature control with indigenous yeasts in traditional old oak fuder casks and was bottled in March 2025. The family describes 2024, a difficult and very small harvest, as a classic Riesling vintage recalling the 1960s, 2004 and 2008, with wines full of flavor and invigorating raciness. Young, it still carries some scents from its spontaneous fermentation and takes a little time to open.

Vineyards and terroir: The Elisenberg lies in Veldenz, south of Mülheim, at the southern end of a prehistoric Mosel riverbed. Planted entirely with Riesling and facing south, it has a cooler microclimate than vineyards closer to the river, and its grey slate, rich in layers of quartz, gives very elegant, delicate, long-lived wines with a complex acid structure, often marked by wild-berry notes of currant, blackberry and raspberry. By the end of the 19th century the Elisenberg was held in the same esteem as Brauneberg, Piesport, Wehlen and the Scharzhofberg, and its wines were served at royal tables in Berlin and London.

Family and history: Richter ancestor Franz Ludwig Niessen planted the Elisenberg in 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, on land given to the family in thanks after he saved the area from being sacked by Napoleon's army, and named it in honor of Queen Louisa of Prussia. Weingut Max Ferd. Richter was founded in 1680 as a wine export company; the estate mansion and its French baroque garden in Mülheim date from 1774, and the 1880 winery buildings hold one of the largest fuder oak barrel cellars in the Mosel. The estate is run by Dr. Dirk Max Ferd. Richter, the ninth generation of his family, with his son Constantin, the tenth generation.

In the pictures: The Veldenzer Elisenberg vineyard (photo: Weingut Max Ferd. Richter).