Review: Nik Weis, St. Urbans-Hof Estate Dry Riesling

It’s another hot summer day and what’s the perfect wine for that? Riesling, of course!

Although riesling is almost always my answer when someone asks, “what’s the perfect wine for ________?” Because riesling is, generally speaking, awesome.

Some people say they don’t like riesling. I say those people haven’t tasted the right riesling. If you are one of these people, let me introduce you to dry riesling.

Dry riesling is elegant, flavorful, vibrant and delicious, but doesn’t have the sweetness that turns some people off to sweeter riesling.

It actually took a while for Nik Weis, the owner of St. Urbans-Hof winery, to release this dry riesling to the US market. While they’ve been producing a dry riesling for customers in Germany for decades, they didn’t start exporting this dry riesling to the US until the 2016 vintage.

Weis believes that to produce a quality dry riesling, it’s important to grow the grapes on old vines with lower yields and deep roots to extract more mineral character from the earth. Many of the riesling vines in their vineyards are 30 to 70 years old. All of them are organically farmed. Weis also credits global warming for producing good dry riesling. At least something good comes from global warming.

Personally, I’m not a vintner, so I don’t fully comprehend the nuances of the science or the art of crafting a wine like this. But I do know that I love the results.

The nose is a bit restrained and offers light aromatics like wet stones, white peach, lemon and green apple. The palate is very dry and tart, with bright acidity. This would be a perfect riesling for oysters. It offers flavors like green apples drizzled with lemon, a hint of white peach and a salty finish. The mouthfeel is nice and the finish is fairly long. If you like dry riesling, this one will do the trick for you.

Wine: Nik Weis, St. Urbans-Hof Estate Dry Riesling
Varieties: Riesling
Vintage: 2018
Alcohol: 12%
Rating: 87
Average price: $18.00
Disclosure: This wine was received as a media sample.