2024 Tesch Riesling Trocken Laubenheimer Karthauser Nahe 750 ml

Jancis Robinson—our greatest active wine critic and a Master of Wine—declared that “German dry Riesling is one of the wine world’s undervalued treasures.”

Case in point: Weingut Tesch, who has been hailed by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate as “one of the most interesting producers in Germany when it comes to dry, linear… Riesling classics in top quality and for affordable prices.” And with 2024, they’ve delivered something that may top everything that’s come before: “The 2024 vintage may even be the best in the first quarter-century under the direction of Martin Tesch.”

Weingut Tesch was founded three centuries ago, in 1723, and has been tending vines in the heart of the Nahe region ever since, acquiring land in some of the most coveted crus of the area. This bottling is entirely from the Karthäuser—one of their flagship vineyards and a VDP Grosse Lage, the German equivalent of a Grand Cru. It’s made with more care and technique in both the vineyard and the cellar than nearly any white at the price.

The Karthäuser vineyard itself has a story worth knowing. The name dates to the Middle Ages, when this hillside above Laubenheim was farmed by Carthusian monks from Mainz—an order famous for their vows of silence, and apparently excellent taste in real estate. The site is shaped like a natural amphitheater, its southwest-facing slope capturing afternoon sun and holding warmth in a way that allows for a degree of ripeness unusual this far north. Below the vines, the soils are ancient Rotliegend—and it’s this combination of sun-trapping aspect and iron-rich, weathered rock that gives the wine its particular character: that tension between generosity and precision, floral richness and stony drive. 

The result, says Wine Advocate, is a wine that’s “intense and floral rather than fruity”—textural and generous, yet “on the finish vital, savory and persistently mineral.” Suckling finds “wild herb and wet-stone complexity” and a “super-long finish.”

It’s hard to think of a white-wine-friendly meal this wouldn’t improve, and we’ve enjoyed it recently with everything from a Little Gem salad studded with radishes, pumpkin seeds, and goat cheese crumbles to a char-broiled branzino stuffed with fennel, lemon, and herbs. You’re going to love it.