From the Importer: " Even though we are blessed with our growers in the Mosel, well, we’ve always wanted more. Why? This is a magical place; its wines are unlike anything else on earth. We wanted more of this place. And this is the first Mosel Estate in 9 years that we've taken, let that tell you something about how important we think it is"

The young grower is Julian Ludes, whose grandfather Hermann Ludes had started the eponymous estate in the 1950s. Ludes has flown under the radar for decades for a number of reasons. First, the village Thörnich is located in an upper section of the Mosel, far away from the famous “Hollywood Mile” of the Mosel. Further, Thörnich is legendary for shaping wines that are raw and tensile; the wines of Hermann Ludes especially can be brutally structured. In other words, these are not easy wines.

To be "Trocken," or "dry," by the German wine law a wine must have 9 or 10 grams of residual sugar per liter, but no more.

The 2022 Ludes "im Schneidersberg" Kabinett -T- has a whopping 15 grams of residual sugar. Therefore Julian Ludes cannot write "Trocken" on the label - he can only write a "T." I'll give you three guesses what the "T" stands for... and the first two guesses don't count.

This is the magic of the Moselle - the wine has a kicking 10.5 grams of acid... and thus our not-legally-dry Kabinett not only tastes absolutely bone dry, it achieves a severity of salt and rock, gunflint and smoke that one rarely finds, even in taut Moselles.