Schiefergestein comes from vineyards of slate in Bockenau and Monger as well as younger vines from the grand cru  of Felseneck, planted to soils of blue Devonian slate, basalt and quartz. No added yeasts. Healthy grapes means less SO2 and this hovers around 43mg. 25-30 year old vines. Flinty, slatey and spicy on the palate.

The Fröhlich family has been cultivating vines since 1800 though Weingut Schäfer-Fröhlich was founded in the 1970s through marriage. In the early 1990s, the extraordinarily talented Tim Fröhlich took over the family estate and made his first vintage in 1995. Rudi Wiest was introduced to Tim by Helmut Dönnhoff who told him there was a young man doing some extraordinary work in the village of Bockenau, an area not known for producing noteworthy wines. Fast forward ten years and Tim Fröhlich was chosen newcomer of the year by The Gault-Millau/German Wine Guide. By 2010, he was selected as winemaker of the year by the same guide; the youngest ever to receive such acclaim. Tim stepped into a virtually unknown estate and shaped it into one of the top Nahe estates in a very short period of time.

The outstanding steep vineyard sites are the foundation for unmistakable, authentic wines. In conjunction with these great sites, the recipe for Tim’s success consist of low yields, painstaking vineyard management, a strong adherence to wild yeast fermentation, a focus on minerality, and an almost unnerving perfectionism in the cellar. Oh, and did we mention that he’s rock star handsome? Ridiculous.

Much of the success was the result of a number of smart acquisitions made by Tim in some of the best vineyards in the region, which nearly doubled the family’s original holdings. He then went on to become a terroir fanatic; developing the best methods to extract the perfect expression of fruit from each of his six Grosses Gewachs classified vineyards. Of considerable note are the blue slate, loess (fine silty sediment) and loam (sand, silt, clay blend) soils of the Felseneck vineyard, considered one of Tim’s most prized holdings, and a virtually unknown location before he started working with it. Schäfer- Fröhlich is making Rieslings as great, or better than, (dare we say it?) any producers in the Nahe. These are some of the most impressive and exciting white wines being crafted anywhere today.