Kiedricher Gräfenberg

The VDP's site profile (fetched 2026) describes the Gräfenberg as 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 VDP notes that the vines root quite deeply in the stony ground. Robert Weil groups the Gräfenberg with its Klosterberg and Turmberg as steep, southwest-facing hillside sites among the higher-elevation vineyards around Kiedrich, which it puts at up to 240 meters above sea level (estate site, fetched 2026), and says the phyllite in all three forms a distinctive foothill zone in the eastern Rheingau, in front of the Taunus ridge. The estate adds that these conditions allow a hang time that can last well into November. At the regional scale, the DWI says 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 (VDP site profile, fetched 2026)
• Phyllite with small admixtures of loess loam (VDP); Robert Weil describes phyllite as a metamorphic clay slate
• Sheltered in the Kiedrich valley basin and ventilated by downslope winds from the Taunus (VDP)
• Robert Weil says the grapes can hang well into November on its Kiedrich hillside sites

According to Robert Weil, the first documentary evidence from 1109 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's site profile instead places that "mons Rhingravii" mention at the end of the 12th century. Both record the name "Grevenberg" 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 (estate history, fetched 2026). The VDP says the wine gained international renown when Robert Weil supplied a Riesling Auslese of the 1893 vintage to numerous imperial and royal houses, and the estate says the Austrian royal court bought 800 bottles of its 1893 Auslese from the "Kiedricher Berg" at sixteen gold marks a bottle. The estate also records that 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. Wilhelm Weil, the founder's great-grandson, began in 1987 with investments in the cellar and vineyards and introduced the "Tiffany Blue" label (estate site, fetched 2026).

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

Robert Weil says the VDP.Grosse Lage designation applies to its finest hillside vineyard, the Kiedrich Gräfenberg, and that besides the dry Riesling labeled VDP.Grosses Gewächs it makes naturally sweet Prädikat wines from the site. The estate's current assortment (fetched 2026) lists five Gräfenberg Rieslings: Trocken GG, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese. For the GG, the estate's fact sheet describes differentiated maceration times, spontaneous fermentation in traditional "Doppelstück" barrels of 2,400 liters (fact sheet, fetched 2026), and further aging on the full lees without sulphur until filtration. Robert Weil says each predicate from its 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 (estate site, fetched 2026). 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 (VDP, fetched 2026).

• Trocken GG: the dry wine, labeled VDP.Grosses Gewächs (estate)
• Spätlese and Auslese: the estate's fact sheets describe the Auslese as picked in several selection passes from fully ripe, golden yellow, shrunken grapes
• Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese: botrytis-affected wines, per the estate's fact sheets
• Every predicate up to Trockenbeerenauslese harvested each vintage since 1989 (Robert Weil)

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, and calls VDP.Grosse Lage the designation for the highest-quality German vineyards; 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 VDP lists the site as "GRÄFENBERG, Kiedrich". On the VDP's grower page (fetched 2026), Robert Weil's Kiedrich holdings comprise 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 the VDP's site profile lists as working in the Gräfenberg. The same grower page records the estate as a VDP member since 1907. The estate says 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 (VDP)
• Robert Weil is the only VDP grower listed in the site (VDP site profile, fetched 2026)
• Neighboring Weil sites Klosterberg, Turmberg and Wasseros are VDP.Erste Lage (VDP)
• Robert Weil has been a VDP member since 1907, per the VDP grower page

The Gräfenberg is the one VDP.Grosse Lage among Robert Weil's classified Kiedrich sites and, per the estate's current assortment, 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 VDP ties the site's international renown to Robert Weil's 1893 Auslese. 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 Robert Weil describes in 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 2026-09-28.