Weingut Dr. Loosen

The winery Dr. Loosen has been family-owned for about 200 years. The vineyards on the Mosel can boast historic Grand Crus, which provide a wonderful foundation for world-class, high-quality Rieslings.

Riesling at its best – Weingut Dr. Loosen

In 1988, Ernst F. Loosen took over the family estate. His goal is to create great wines that characteristically express climate, soil, and grape variety. In 1993, the Weingut Dr. Loosen became a member of the VDP (Verband deutscher Prädikatsweingüter). In addition to the main estate, wines are also produced at the Villa Wolf estate. 

The expression of the sites and the associated climatic and geological conditions is the concern of Ernst Loosen. In his own words, when he "drinks a wine from our First Grand Cru Wehlener Sonnenuhr, [...] he wants to smell the blue slate that nourished the grapes and taste the fruit that is connected with this unique terroir."

His ideas are so precise that he completely thinks through the wines he wants to produce beforehand and has a clear vision in mind, very much in the spirit of the great winemakers he himself knows and appreciates.

The slopes of the Mosel

The steep south-facing slopes of the Mosel are truly famous for the Riesling produced here. Minimal shading from the slopes, resulting in extensive sunlight exposure, ensures deep warming of the soil, which releases this heat again at night, thus providing the grapes with very balanced climatic conditions and low stress.

Slate with a high potassium content dominates the mountains along the Mosel, shaping the mineral character of Mosel Riesling. The long vegetation periods in combination with the heat balance allow for slow ripening of the grapes, which in turn enables the optimal acidity profile for this wine.

The estate’s well-known sites include, among others:

• Wehlener Sonnenuhr
• Ürziger Würzgarten
• Graacher Himmelreich

Spirit of discovery in the cellar

Ernst Loosen likes to mature his high-quality wines in wood. This was largely inspired by the studies of the historian Karl Christoffel, who discovered that in Goethe’s time it was quite common to mature Riesling in casks for a long time, as well as by the enjoyment of a bottle of Ürziger Würzgarten from 1947. He then began experimenting himself with such extended maturation and aged a 1981 wine until 2008. The result was so astonishing that he continued experimenting and thus arrived at the current period of 24 months.

From estate wines to village wines up to Grand Cru sites, Dr. Loosen has something to offer at every level. In addition to dry Riesling in various quality levels, they also offer off-dry versions, the Réserve line with 24 months of maturation in large oak casks, and 6 sparkling wines. The wines of Dr. Loosen have rightly been praised several times by the trade press and have already gained recognition beyond the circle of connoisseurs.