Markus Molitor Zeltinger Himmelreich Riesling Kabinett 2016 Big Bottle hangs southeast-facing on its steep

hangs southeast-facing on its steep slopes: two thirds of a hectare of Gamay planted in the late 1960s in granite threaded with blue rock

mocha and cedar from oak

and matured 20 months in Hungarian and French barriques

trained in Beaune

Buttery and balanced with a perfect hint of acidity (like its namesake cookie)

Markus Molitor Zeltinger Himmelreich Riesling Kabinett 2016 Big Bottle hangs southeast-facing on its steepMarkus Molitor took over his family's estate in 1984 at age twenty, the eighth generation of his family to make wine on the Mosel, and has since built it into one of the river's largest family owned wineries, some 120 hectares farmed from Haus Klosterberg near Zeltingen. His parcels in Zeltinger Himmelreich occupy steep sections of finely splintered blue Devonian slate, and the winemaking is exacting: soft crushing, several hours on the skins,