2023 Schnaitmann Schnait Dry Riesling Württemberg 750 ml

Rainer Schnaitmann might be the best German winemaker that most Americans have never heard about…and that includes even wine drinkers who love German wine.

But that’s changing in a hurry

That’s because Schnaitmann is the vanguard producer in Württemberg, the capital of Swabian wine production—and Swabia is one of the hottest, most in-demand regions in German wine right now.

Once you’ve been clued in, the evidence starts to pop up everywhere: Schnaitmann placed a wine #3 on Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100 Wines of the Year list last year, and his bottles regularly pop up on MICHELIN-starred wine lists across Europe. It's a fitting coronation for a driven winemaker who made waves nearly two decades ago as the youngest-ever inductee to the prestigious Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (aka VDP), the iconic association of the top wineries in Germany.

It seems the whole wine world is enthralled by the fantastically complex, densely mineral wines that Rainer makes, and his Schnait Dry Riesling is the calling-card of the address.

It’s sourced from an assortment of his carefully chosen, organically certified vineyards across the region, where yields are limited to improve quality, and then it’s treated like a top-end wine in the cellar. That means a slow, gentle press cycle to extract juice without harshness, followed by a fermentation with native yeasts. 

Unlike many of his peers, the wine doesn’t go to bottle quickly in the spring, either—this spends a full ten months on its lees in stainless steel tanks, building complexity and texture to match the brilliant rocky energy he draws from the marl and sandstone soils around Wurrtemberg. It’s a brilliant bottle at the table with seafood, fowl, or cheese.