The Teutonic Tonic. - Vintage Berkeley
The Teutonic Tonic.



2016 Nagelsförst
Baden Baden Riesling (Dry)
(Wine Enthusiast: 92 pts.)

Normally: $19.

Our price on 1: Only $18. Buy here.
Our price on 6: Only $16! Buy here.
Our price on 12: Only 
$14! Buy here!

TL;DR: The white wine VB employees may have bought the most of for their personal stashes in 2020 is also the thing you need in your fridge for summer 2021! And: it's back! Get the most electrifying sub-$20, bone-dry Riesling we found all year... for the best price it's ever been offered at!


752 years ago? A group of Cistercian nuns went road tripping. (Think Kerouac, but with wimples and ümlaüts.) They'd visited a band of their monk homies in Burgundy, who'd gone on and on about how good their Pinot was. (So much for those vows of silence, eh?) And when those delight-seeking sisters brought back vine cuttings to their Abbey (still functioning today!)? Germany's Baden region was forever altered.

Turns out? Those sisters knew what they were doing! They planted atop a magical, forest-enshrouded hilltop, rich in sunshine and granitic/volcanic soils, ensuring wines of nigh-divine (sorry, but seriously!) brightness and lift.

 
The vineyard views of Baden

Seven and a half centuries later? Nagelsförst's still got it. Their basic “estate” Riesling is great... but this, their village-level “Baden” Riesling, is a huge step up: this is bone-dry, and shot through with Baden’s nigh-pulsating mineralogy (granite, sandstone, and volcanic rock all abound here), think lemon and white grapefruit pith atop crushed river rock.  (We're in good company: Wine Enthusiast made it an "Editor's Choice" selection and gave it 92 points.)

This is not only probably the single white wine VB employees have bought the most of last year; and it's not only the "house white" of Rudi Wiest himself (America's first great importer of German wines). himself! *Some people keep a 6-pack of beer in the fridge; Rudi and me dance to a different nunnery.)  It's also quite frankly just the sort of  refresher you'll want to have on hand all summer long; it pairs as well with your Thai take-out as it does with just another a sun-spangled afternoon.

Let your friends stock their Corona-fridges with actual Corona! You know a superior summer beverage when you see one: get a perfectly pedigreed, finely filigreed, village-level Riesling... at a historically low, daily-drinker price! (Riesling-phobic? This is the summer you make the change... and this is the low-$-risk wine you start with!)



2016 Nagelsförst
Baden Baden Riesling (Dry)
(Wine Enthusiast: 92 pts.)

Normally: $19.

Our price on 1: Only $18. Buy here.
Our price on 6: Only $16! Buy here.
Our price on 12: Only 
$14! Buy here!

(N.b.: this is not the ordinary Nagelsförst Riesling, as good as that is! This, the Baden village bottling, is a huge leap up in seriousness!)