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7.5 per cent alcohol. A Kabinett from one of Germany's finest vineyard sites. Weingut Schätzel in Nierstein demonstrates that great wines need not be loud. Since 2008, Kai Schätzel has led the family estate at the Roter Hang – pursuing lightness over power with unwavering conviction. In a barrel cellar over 800 years old, his Rieslings and Silvaners mature into wines of inner tension: restrained, precise, and distinctly their own. Demeter-certified since 2023, VDP member since 2016.
More about Schätzel
The Cellar as a Time Capsule
Step into the Schätzel cellar and you enter eight centuries of winegrowing history. The family has farmed its parcels on Nierstein's Roter Hang since 1350, and to this day it makes its wine in the same vaults where its ancestors once filled the wooden casks. The red-brown clay slate of the Rotliegend that shapes the steep slopes is mirrored in the wines: mineral, earthy, with an almost salty note.
A Silvaner Clone of Their Own
The vines in the parcels of the Hipping site are no ordinary Silvaner. Here Kai Schätzel tends his own Schätzel clone in plantings 30 to 40 years old: small, thick-skinned berries that yield concentrated wines of remarkable freshness. While Silvaner is often dismissed as an everyday wine in Rheinhessen, Schätzel shows what the variety can do and takes it to a level that few others reach. His VDP.GROSSE LAGEN, Pettenthal, Ölberg and Hipping, are among the finest that German vineyards have to offer. On the Pettenthal, where the neighbouring Kühling-Gillot also farms vines, he makes Rieslings of enormous depth.
Kabinett as the Supreme Discipline
While other winemakers bank on power and extraction, Kai Schätzel takes a different path. His Riesling Kabinett, at just 7.5 per cent alcohol, is no concession to the zeitgeist but a matter of conviction. The balance of sweetness and acidity, the feathery lightness combined with depth: all of this demands painstaking work in the vineyard. Up to six passes through the vines, extreme selection, early picking for freshness. Then, in the cellar: spontaneous fermentation in large wooden casks, gentle pressing over 20 hours, and up to two years of maturation before bottling.
Natural Wine Grosses Gewächs: A German First
In 2020 Schätzel became the first German estate to release natural wine Grosses Gewächs: spontaneously fermented, without sulphur, bottled unfiltered. Stephan Reinhardt of the Wine Advocate went on to call Schätzel "one of the most exciting and interesting new discoveries in German wine culture." The Naturweiss shows this philosophy at Gutswein level: reductive, with rough edges, but never contrived. Together with Jule Eichblatt, who joined the estate in 2020 and now co-manages it, Kai Schätzel has also pushed ahead with biodynamic certification – since 2023 the estate has carried the Demeter seal. His credo remains: "Lighter, longer and sometimes a little wilder."