Weingut AJ Adam

– Mosel

Conveying a slope in 2D or words is a thankless task, Wordsworth couldn’t do it justice, you’ll just have to take my word for it – it’s bloody steep. There was a point at which Barbara Adam was stood about a metre in front of me, her feet were level with my head as she was explaining how in January with all the agility of a mountain goat she crept up and down the slopes picking off single grapes for the Eiswein harvest. Each parcel of land within the Hofberg has its own stories, quirks and unique aspects, each one tended very differently to allow for the optimum expression of its terroir.

The winery is very modest indeed, in a building not much bigger than my front room, winemaker Andreas turns the 5ha of family fruit into some of the Mosel’s most precise and pure Rieslings. Andreas would be the first to admit he’s no miracle worker, he’s lucky enough to work with some truly exceptional fruit but his style of minimal intervention winemaking and extremely frugal exposure to oxygen allows him to bottle something akin to lightening. To put the scale of production into perspective magnums need to be pre-ordered and are bottled by hand. The limited number of bottles available means we are certain to sell out of some vintages but with a selection of older parcels available we will do our best to fill the gaps with something as equally charming and interesting.