"A scintillating Riesling from The WineBarn. While a couple of wines this week represent incredible value because they are ‘cheap’, this one also seems incredibly keenly priced, given its flavour, and it sits above £20! Made from ripe fruit that might have made it into a Spätlese wine from another estate, but here is rewarded with the famous 1763 label, the pristine nature and apparent intensity of the Riesling notes in this wine are extraordinary, made all the more remarkable because is it a ‘dry wine’. I say dry when the residual sugar is a hefty 10.5 g/L, but it appears dry because the acidity buried in the core of this thrilling creation is so arresting and commanding that it firms the experience up to white-knuckle levels. Very few wines in the world offer seduction with a sting like this one. The most obvious port of call is Australia, where elite dry Rieslings are widely available. But none of them has the delicacy of this one. The flavour-shape is sensational - long, cool, flirtatious, teasing, and exquisitely tense. Do everything you can to taste this wine."
Rating: 18.5 out of 20
Drinking window: Now until 2025
Matthew Jukes, Wine Writer (2023)
Wine: One of K. F. Groebe's finest quality wines. Their classic Riesling *1763* is a refreshing , fruit and elegant wine. It's intense fruit flavours create an off-dry wine, that is not quite Spätlese level. It offers pure drinking pleasure and is a welcome companion to a variety of dishes. It's name recalls the year the winery was founded by Johann Michael Groebe.
Vineyard: The vineyard is classified as VDP. Gorsse Lage (Grand Cru), which is the highest classification of quality for German vineyards.
The Riesling grapes that produced this wine come from 20 year old vines grown in the Aulerde vineyard, in the Rheinhessen region. The glacial valley of the Rhein rises to the south-east to the edge of a high plateau, so the vineyard is sheltered by the eastern and southern slopes of the parish is the Aulerde.
The soil in this vineyard is rich in loess loam, and has a clayey layer with even gravelly sand underground, providing excellent drainage.
Vinification: The harvest took place during the end of September and beginning of October, giving the Riesling berries time to mature and develop their intense fruit flavours.
Alcohol: 11% vol.
Res. sugar: 10,5 g/l
Acidity: 9,2 g/l
