Schloss Vollrads

Schloss Vollrads is at Oestrich-Winkel in the Rheingau, and it has one of the longest documented histories of any wine estate anywhere. The Greiffenclau family line is documented from 1097 at the Graues Haus in Winkel, said to be the oldest stone dwelling in Germany. The first recorded sale of wine from here was in 1211, to the St Viktorstift in Mainz. The residential tower that still stands on the site, and which appears on the labels, was built in 1330 on Roman foundations, and the family lived in it for more than three centuries.

Then 1716, which is the date that matters to anyone drinking German wine. That is when the Cabinet cellar was built here, a separate store into which only the best Rieslings went. The word Kabinett, which now sits in German wine law as a quality level, comes from that cellar. Worth being precise about it: 1716 is the founding of the Kabinettkeller, not the first bottle of Kabinett as we would recognise it today.

The family era ended in 1997 with the death of Erwein Graf Matuschka-Greiffenclau, and in 1999 the Nassauische Sparkasse took on the castle and the winery together, on the basis that the two should not be separated. Ralf Bengel is the winery director. The estate was a founding member of the VDP in 1910 and remains a VDP.Prädikatsweingut.

Seventy hectares, and every one of them Riesling. The Rheingau sits on the north bank of the Rhine here, where the river runs east to west for a stretch and the slopes face south, and the vineyard soils are Taunus quartzite and loess. Rheingau Riesling as a style carries more body and grip than the Mosel equivalent, which is why it holds up so well at the table rather than just before dinner. Conversion to organic farming started in 2019 and certification came through in 2022; the estate now describes itself as the largest organic winery in Hesse. A new cellar was finished for the 2024 harvest, built to KfW-40 energy standards.

The wines are classified the VDP way, by origin: Gutswein at the base, then Ortswein from a single village, then Erste Lage and Grosse Lage from the best individual sites. The estate's own top dry wine is the Schlossberg Grosses Gewächs, off old vines in the vineyard that takes its name from the castle, and it also makes Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese in the sweeter styles.

Two of the dry wines sit in the bottom half of that ladder. The Volratz is a Rheingau Riesling Qualitätswein trocken carrying a label that reproduces an old map on which the castle appears under its historic spelling, Volratz, next to Winckel and Mittelheim. The Winkel is a step up: a VDP.Ortswein, the village classification, from Winkel itself.