Tasting note
The Windvogt is an old parcel designation in the Wawerner Ritterpfad site. In the time around 1900, Wawern was, along with Bernkastel-Kues and Wiltingen, one of the three most important wine-growing communities in the area, which even then was called "Mosel". The once very famous, but now defunct, Jakob Linz winery produced wines here over a period of a good 100 years on what were probably the oldest vineyards in the Saar mentioned in documents. At the famous auctions in Trier, these wines fetched prices that were often higher than those of Egon Müller, the primus inter pares of the Saar. Between 2006 and 2010, we acquired a total of 156 plots or 19 hectares of vineyards in the top sites of Wawern. About 2 hectares of these are in the "Windvogt" site.
The "Windvogt" is a parcel of land that was already included in the group of the few highest rated (Grand Cru) vineyard sites in the 1860s by Prussian tax assessors with a rating of 8 out of 8. Unlike all other Saar sites, Windvogt, located on the far western edge of the Saar vineyards, has not only slate but also a mixture of sands and limestones, as here the Rhenish Slate Mountains merge with the Luxembourg Basin (limestone). Therefore, we have at Van Volxem in the
therefore planted exclusively white Burgundy varieties on the local steep slopes. The vines of Windvogt Weißburgunder, produced only in highly ripe years, are still quite young, but of excellent genetic quality, as we have planted only old Burgundy clones here. As the only wine at Van Volxem, the Windvogt is aged in small new barriques, which results in the typical oaky
vanilla notes typical of oak. The wood for these barrels comes from the famous French tonnellerie Taransaud as well as from the renowned Austrian cooper Franz Stockinger, who produced the barrels from the oak wood of our family-owned Eifel forests. Naturally consistently fermented, dry Windvogt requires several years of bottle aging.