Riesling Brut

Dr. Heidemanns-Bergweiler is one of the labels of the Pauly family's estate at Gestade 15 in Bernkastel-Kues, on the Middle Mosel. Its website carries the same text, address and vineyard list as Dr. Pauly-Bergweiler, and the label's tech sheets are issued from the same house. The estate shares ancestry with the Prüms of Wehlen; the wein.plus lexicon records that the Bergweiler family was first mentioned in the fifteenth century, that the holdings passed to Dr. Peter Pauly in 1959, that the Peter Nicolay estate in Ürzig came in through his marriage to Helga Berres, and that his son Stefan Pauly has run the business since 2006. The estate describes fifteen vineyard sites spread over about twenty kilometres of river between Brauneberg and Erden, Riesling almost everywhere, with holdings in Bernkasteler Badstube, Alte Badstube am Doctorberg, Graacher Himmelreich, Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Ürziger Würzgarten and Erdener Prälat among others. The winery is just outside Bernkastel: each site is fermented separately in small stainless steel tanks, slowly and at low temperature.

The Riesling Brut Sekt is the estate's sparkling wine. The producer's sheet says it is a cuvee of 100 percent Riesling from selected reserve-quality base wines, made by the traditional method with the second fermentation in bottle, and lists its quality level simply as "sparkling wine"; neither the sheet nor the label claims a Sekt b.A. or Deutscher Sekt designation, and the back label reads "shipped by Dr. Heidemanns-Bergweiler, Bernkastel/Mosel" rather than "produced by"; the estate does not say where the second fermentation is carried out. The bottle is 12 percent alcohol and the importer's sticker gives 11.3 g/l residual sugar, within the brut band. The importer's sticker gives 22 March 2024 as the date of filling for this bottle; the producer publishes no disgorgement date, base vintage or time on lees for this wine.