Grans-Fassian Estate in Leiwen, Mosel

Grans-Fassian Estate in Leiwen

When I drove along the Mosel on a grey Saturday morning last November, I was heading to Leiwen to buy some good Riesling wines.

There were three reasons for this trip. It all started at Frankfurt airport when I bought the December issue of “Weinwelt” (World of Wine), the German wine magazine.

1. I had looked at the results of a wine tasting of grand cru (GG = Grosses Gewaechs) Rieslings: two of the top wines from the Mosel came from Leiwen; one of them was a ‘2009 Dhroner Hofberg’ by Grans-Fassian Estate.

2. Leiwen is just a 30 minutes drive from my mothers home in Trier at one of the most beautiful bights of my beloved Mosel.

3. I love German Riesling especially if it comes from the Mosel river and I wanted to know what a 95 point wine would taste like.

The original Grans-Fassian Estate manor house with the cellar door

So off I went by car and cruised along down the Mosel. I was lucky, the cellar door was open. Here I met Catherina, one of the two daughters of the owner, Gerhard Grans who had taken over the estate from his father Matthias in 1982.

We had a bit of a chat about wine, life and the universe. Catherina is a charming young lady. She is going to be an oenology student at Geisenheim soon.

Catherina Grans showing me the top wines

I tasted two of the wines (the ones mentioned in the magazine): the ‘2009 Riesling Dhroner Hofberg’ (95 points) and the ‘2009 Riesling Leiwener Laurentiuslay’ (92 points). I tell you these are Rieslings how I like them. Wonderful wines indeed. Tropical fruit the first wine, and a kind of a citrus bomb the second. Both with a good structure, young, minerally, powerful with a long finish.

The treasure box with Grans-Fassian wines

Furthermore, I learned that the estate has about 10 ha under vines. Some of the vineyards are lokated in the best terroir of the region, for instance Dhroner Hofberg, Leiwener Laurentiuslay, Piesporter Goldtroepfchen, and Trittenheimer Apotheke.

About 88% of the vines are Riesling, 10% Pinot Blanc and 2% Pinot Gris. The brochure shows the steep slopes of some of the vineyards, most of them with a southern or western aspect. The micro climate is ideal for Riesling. The soils consisting of red, grey and blue slate.

I bought a couple of the two wines I had tasted. By the way for someone like me who pays obscene prices for wine in Bangkok, these top wines were very reasonably priced, in fact they were a true bargain. It’s a pity that wine bottles are so heavy. I knew that I could only take one, maximum two of them with me on my long journey back to Thailand. What a pity, I thought.

The wine bloggers delight

Here is another hot “secret” for your next trip to the Mosel river: Grans-Fassian Estate in Leiwen should be your destination. Trust me, you will not regret it.