With 33 ha along the Mosel and 5 ha along the Saar, the Weingut Molitor is a fairly large family-owned winery specializing on Riesling. Due to steep vineyards sites (some of which have a gradient of 80%) almost all grapes are hand-picked from mostly ungrafted old vines (some are almost a hundred years old).
The average yield is between 10-55 hl/ha, depending on the individual vineyard parcel and the vintage.
Fermentation is started with wild yeasts and continues slowly over months in large wooden casks. No temperature control means that often fermentation stops during the winter months and continues in the spring when the temperatures rise again.
Markus Molitor recently introduced a new color-coding of his wines. Dry wines all have a white capsule now, while the feinherb Rieslings (i.e. the ones with a touch of residual sugar) come with a green capsule. The sweet wines, from the Spätlese level upwards, have a gold capsule.
Tasting notes
2009 Riesling Haus Klosterberg Dry2009 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese
2008 Riesling Haus Klosterberg trocken
2008 Bernkasteler Badstube Riesling Spätlese halbtrocken
2008 Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Spätlese
2008 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese
2006 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese
Wild yeasts. Slow fermentaion in large wooden casks.