Kiedricher Gräfenberg

The Gräfenberg is a steep hillside site with a gradient of up to 60 percent: an 11-hectare southwest-facing slope that lies sheltered in the Kiedrich valley basin but is well ventilated by downslope winds from the Taunus, which allows a long hang time for the grapes. Its soils are stony-gritty phyllite, medium to deep, with a share of loess loam that helps them hold water, and the vines root quite deeply in the stony ground. With the Klosterberg and Turmberg, it is one of Robert Weil's three steep, southwest-facing hillside sites among the higher-elevation vineyards around Kiedrich, which reach up to 240 meters above sea level. The phyllite found in all three forms a distinctive foothill zone in the eastern Rheingau, in front of the Taunus ridge, and the hang time on these sites can last well into November. At the regional scale, the Rheingau's vineyards are protected from cold winds by the forest-capped Taunus Hills.

• Southwest-facing, 30 to 60 percent gradient, 230 meters above sea level, 10.69 hectares classified
• Phyllite, a metamorphic clay slate, with small admixtures of loess loam
• Sheltered in the Kiedrich valley basin and ventilated by downslope winds from the Taunus
• Hang time on the Kiedrich hillside sites can last well into November

Weingut Robert Weil dates the first documentary evidence to 1109, which mentions the clearing of the Gräfenberg as an allotment of the Rheingrafen (Rhine earls) and names the site "mons rhingravii", the mountain of the Rhine earls; the VDP places that "mons Rhingravii" mention at the end of the 12th century. The name "Grevenberg" is recorded in documents from 1258 and 1259. Dr. Robert Weil bought his first vineyards on the Kiedricher Berg in 1867, while still a professor of German at the Sorbonne in Paris, until events before the Franco-Prussian War (1870/71) forced him to leave; from 1875 he expanded the estate by buying parcels of the Kiedricher Berg. The wine gained international renown when Robert Weil supplied a Riesling Auslese of the 1893 vintage to numerous imperial and royal houses. The Austrian royal court bought 800 bottles of the 1893 Auslese from the "Kiedricher Berg" at sixteen gold marks a bottle. In 1928 the wine list of the airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, on its maiden voyage to New York, featured a 1920 Kiedricher Gräfenberg Trockenbeerenauslese Best Cask No. 20 from the Weil estate. Wilhelm Weil, the founder's great-grandson, began in 1987 with investments in the cellar and vineyards and introduced the "Tiffany Blue" label.

• 1109: first documentary evidence in the estate's dating; the VDP dates the "mons Rhingravii" mention to the end of the 12th century
• 1258 and 1259: the name "Grevenberg" recorded
• 1867: Dr. Robert Weil buys his first Kiedricher Berg vineyards; 1875: the estate's founding year and the start of his expansion
• 1893: a Riesling Auslese of this vintage brings the site international renown

Robert Weil calls the Gräfenberg its finest hillside vineyard, the site its VDP.Grosse Lage designation applies to. Besides the dry Riesling labeled VDP.Grosses Gewächs, the estate makes naturally sweet Prädikat wines from the site, and its current assortment lists five Gräfenberg Rieslings: Trocken GG, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese. The GG is made with differentiated maceration times, fermented spontaneously in traditional "Doppelstück" barrels of 2,400 liters and aged further on the full lees without sulphur until filtration. Each predicate from the estate's Gutswein to the Gräfenberg GG to Trockenbeerenauslese has been harvested in every vintage since 1989, with as many as seventeen selective hand-harvest passes over a harvest of at least eight to ten weeks. The estate ferments and ages its dry wines in casks and uses stainless steel for the lighter, fruitier and naturally sweet wines. Under the VDP classification, fruity and noble sweet Prädikat wines from VDP.Grosse Lage sites go on sale on May 1 of the year after harvest, while white VDP.Grosses Gewächs wines are released on September 1 after roughly one year of maturation.

• Trocken GG: the dry wine, labeled VDP.Grosses Gewächs
• Spätlese and Auslese: the Auslese is picked in several selection passes from fully ripe, golden yellow, shrunken grapes
• Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese: botrytis-affected wines
• Every predicate up to Trockenbeerenauslese harvested each vintage since 1989

The VDP adopted its four-tier classification (VDP.Gutswein, VDP.Ortswein, VDP.Erste Lage and VDP.Grosse Lage) in 2012, starting with the 2012 vintage; VDP.Grosse Lage is the designation for the highest-quality German vineyards, and dry wines from these sites are called VDP.Grosses Gewächs and carry the GG grape logo on a special bottle. A VDP.Grosse Lage wine names the vineyard without the village as its origin, and the site is classified as "GRÄFENBERG, Kiedrich". Robert Weil's classified Kiedrich sites are the Gräfenberg as VDP.Grosse Lage and the Kiedricher Klosterberg, Kiedricher Turmberg and Kiedricher Wasseros as VDP.Erste Lage, and Robert Weil is the only VDP grower listed as working in the Gräfenberg. The estate has been a VDP member since 1907. Its Turmberg, the Gräfenberg's neighbor, was reinstated in 2005 as a single vineyard and monopoly property of the estate with 3.8 hectares.

• VDP.Grosse Lage; dry wines labeled VDP.Grosses Gewächs
• Robert Weil is the only VDP grower listed in the site
• Robert Weil's other Kiedrich sites Klosterberg, Turmberg and Wasseros are VDP.Erste Lage
• Robert Weil has been a VDP member since 1907

The Gräfenberg is the one VDP.Grosse Lage among Robert Weil's classified Kiedrich sites and the source of a full run of Riesling styles from a dry Grosses Gewächs to Trockenbeerenauslese. Its documented history reaches back to the 12th century, and the wine gained international renown when Robert Weil supplied its 1893 Riesling Auslese to numerous imperial and royal houses. For students, it is a working example of how a VDP.Grosse Lage label works (vineyard name without the village, GG for the dry wine, Prädikats for the sweet wines) and of the phyllite foothill soils of the eastern Rheingau.

Primary sources (Weingut Robert Weil's own site and fact sheets, the VDP, and the Deutsches Weininstitut): https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/en/wines/vineyards-1, https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/en/winery/tradition, https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/en/winery/modern-times, https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/en/wines/assortment/grosse-lage, https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/en/wines/riesling, https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/Assets/RobertWeil/Media/Expertisen/EN/Kiedrich_Graefenberg_Riesling_Trocken_GG.pdf, https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/Assets/RobertWeil/Media/Expertisen/EN/Kiedrich_Graefenberg_Riesling_Spaetlese.pdf, https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/Assets/RobertWeil/Media/Expertisen/EN/Kiedrich_Graefenberg_Riesling_Auslese.pdf, https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/Assets/RobertWeil/Media/Expertisen/EN/Kiedrich_Graefenberg_Riesling_Beerenauslese.pdf, https://www.weingut-robert-weil.com/Assets/RobertWeil/Media/Expertisen/EN/Kiedrich_Graefenberg_Riesling_Trockenbeerenauslese.pdf, https://www.vdp.de/de/die-weine/weinbergonline/lage/7048-graefenberg, https://www.vdp.de/de/die-winzer/rheingau/robert-weil, https://www.vdp.de/en/the-wines/classification, https://www.winesofgermany.com/our-regions/growing-area/69/rheingau, https://www.winesofgermany.com/our-wine/quality-standards/quality-standard/449/pr%C3%A4dikat-categories. Last verified 2026-10-05.