Deidesheimer Paradiesgarten Waldberg Riesling trocken - Weingut Julian Seckinger

Available from September 18 - Very limited.

This Riesling comes from a single parcel of just twelve hundred square meters (0.12 hectares) in the Waldberg, a premier cru site of barely seven hectares in Deidesheimer Paradiesgarten, facing southeast, at an altitude of around one hundred and eighty meters and directly on the edge of the forest. It is precisely this peripheral location that makes the difference: morning sun from the southeast, then early shade, the cooling influence of the forest, and little evening sun. The grapes ripen slower, preserving freshness and tension in the wine. The soils, composed of weathered colored sandstone and sandy loam, are lean and permeable; the over fifty-year-old, ungrafted vines reach deep into these layers.

Julian Seckinger took over the management of this vineyard entirely at the age of sixteen. After internships, wine travels, studies in Geisenheim, and stints at some of Germany's most renowned wineries, he returned to this very parcel. The 2024 vintage is his first own vintage.

In the glass, a bright, clear straw yellow with greenish reflections. The nose is restrained and opens slowly: citrus and white peach, herbs, a hint of flint, and the dry, dusty note of the colored sandstone, plus the fine spice from the long lees aging. On the palate, not a broad, opulent Palatinate, but rather quiet concentration – lean, very precise, with saline minerality and a distinctive, almost peppery spice. The acidity is ripe and carries without being pushy. The finish is long, cool, and lingering – a wine of great tranquility and inner tension.

The cultivation is carried out with the utmost care and entirely by hand; harvesting is selective and by hand. Fermentation takes place spontaneously in wooden barrels, followed by fourteen months of aging on the full lees, without intervention, without acceleration, in a historic sandstone cellar beneath Deidesheim. 

A Palatinate Riesling for the long haul, and the first vintage from a vineyard that remains the heart of this winery. For those who enjoy accompanying such wines from the very first bottle, this is the perfect starting point.