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Bergkloster

Riesling Trocken 2018

Price: $35.95
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Tasting notes

Skin-contact Riesling is rare anywhere; from Westhofen's limestone-marl soils it produces a wine that is dry, mineral, and tangy rather than the usual off-dry, fruit-syrupy German white. The nine months on lees in large oak add a quiet roundness without erasing the grape's signature acidity.

BodyFruitTanninAcidity
ApricotOrangeLemon PeelFlint
  • Style: Dry, medium-bodied orange wine; amber; apricot, citrus, mineral; Westhofen, Rheinhessen
  • Grapes & Terroir: 100% Riesling; certified organic; loess, marl, and limestone soils; Westhofen village, Wonnegau, Rheinhessen
  • Winemaking: Partial skin contact; native yeast fermentation; 9 months on lees in large oval oak; unfined, unfiltered, no added SO2
  • Serving: Serve at 52-56°F; suitable for light chilling; no decanting required
  • Pairing: Smoked trout, gravlax, soft-ripened cheese, roasted pork with stone fruit, spiced dishes
  • Similar To: For fans of skin-contact whites and Alsatian dry Riesling who want a German terroir take

Bergkloster's Riesling Trocken is a skin-contact white from the Wonnegau, the southernmost and warmest sub-region of Rheinhessen. Grapes come from the village of Westhofen, where the Bergkloster collective vineyard site sits on a patchwork of loess, marl, limestone, and clay soils. A portion of the fruit is fermented on skins while the remainder is pressed directly, giving the wine its amber hue and gentle textural grip without overwhelming tannin.

Winemaker Jason Groebe ferments with native yeasts, ages the wine in large oval oak for approximately nine months on the full lees, and bottles it unfined, unfiltered, and without added sulfites. The approach has been in place since 2018, when Jason began the low-intervention transition of the family estate. The vineyards have been farmed organically since 2004.

On the palate the wine is dry (Trocken) with pronounced acidity typical of Riesling from calcareous Wonnegau soils. Skin contact adds texture and pulls out additional aromatic complexity — apricot, orange peel, and citrus zest alongside a mineral backbone. It is a genuine departure from the conventional German Riesling archetype and one of the few skin-contact Rieslings produced in Rheinhessen.

The combination of high acidity, light tannin, and citrus-apricot fruit makes this a natural match for fatty, cured fish such as smoked trout or gravlax. It also works well with soft-ripened cheeses, roasted pork with stone fruit, and spiced dishes where a conventional white would feel too delicate.

Wine details

Dry/Sweet:, Dry
Wine Type:, Orange Wine
Wine Style:, Medium Body
Grapes:, Riesling
Farming:, Organic
Vintage:, 2018
Alcohol:, N/A
Country:, Germany
Region:, Rheinhessen
Appellation:, Rheinhessen
Bottle Size:, 750ml
Sugar Level:, Zero Added Sugar

We will process and ship your order in 2-3 business days, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with tracking as soon as the Carrier scans the shipping label.

Ground shipping time depends on location, here's a breakdown:

West Coast: 1-2 business days
Midwest: 3-4 business days
East Coast: 5 business days

Process time is not shipping time. Shipping time starts from the days successive to the day of shipping, after the order has been processed.

See here our shipping policy.


Important Compliance Requirements

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If you'd like to receive a refund for a package that was returned to us after FedEx made three delivery attempts, we can do that but we must keep a $20 refund fee; FedEx charges us a lot of money for returns, unfortunately, I can't stress this enough.


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Placed an order. What next?

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2. As soon as your order ships from the warehouse, usually within 2-3 business days, this applies to all shipping rates, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with your tracking information. 2DAY shipping refers to shipping time; we still need 2-3 business days to prepare an order. We need to pick and pack, QA, add printed collateral, and palletize the orders.

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Returns Policy

If you are not satisfied with your purchase, please contact us at (424) 414-2040 or via e-mail at hello@primalwine.com between 9 am and 5 pm Pacific Standard Time, Monday through Sunday, we would like to understand and try to solve your concerns. We can offer refunds only as store credit.

Producer profile

Bergkloster

Weingut Bergkloster is a family estate in Westhofen, Rheinhessen. Jason Groebe leads the winery as the fifth generation of his family, which has farmed the property for over 120 years. The estate name translates roughly to 'abbey on the hill' in German. Jason studied viticulture and oenology at Geisenheim University and completed a placement at Weingut Wittmann in Westhofen before returning to the family business.

The estate's approximately 8 hectares of vineyards have been maintained organically since 2004. Beginning in 2018, Jason transitioned the cellar to a low-intervention approach — no added sulfites, no fining, no filtration — a shift he worked to implement alongside the older generation of the family. The winery produces Riesling and Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) as its primary varieties.

For the Riesling Trocken, a portion of the grapes undergoes skin maceration while the rest is pressed directly. Fermentation proceeds spontaneously with native yeasts. The wine ages for approximately nine months in large oval oak vessels on the full lees before bottling unfined, unfiltered, and without sulfite addition.

Wine region

Rheinhessen, Germany

Rheinhessen is Germany's largest wine region by area, covering roughly 27,000 hectares on the left bank of the Rhine between Mainz, Bingen, and Worms in the Rhineland-Palatinate federal state. The region is divided into three main districts: Bingen in the northwest, Nierstein (home to the famous Roter Hang red-soil slope) in the east, and Wonnegau in the south. The climate is among the mildest and driest in Germany, protected to the north by the Taunus Hills, to the west by forested uplands, and to the east by the Oden Forest. Soils vary considerably: loess and limestone dominate the Wonnegau, while red Rotliegenden sandstone-clay defines the Nierstein riverfront.

The Wonnegau, centered around the ancient city of Worms and including the village of Westhofen, is the warmest and driest part of Rheinhessen. Its vineyards sit on a complex mix of loess, marl, limestone, and Terra Rossa (iron-rich red clay). Westhofen itself is a 765-hectare wine village with an amphitheater-shaped topography that shelters south-facing vines from cold Rhine valley winds and delivers 1,500 to 1,600 hours of sunshine annually. The Bergkloster collective vineyard site encompasses several individual Westhofen plots including the VDP Grosse Lagen of Morstein, Aulerde, Kirchspiel, and Brunnenhäuschen — sites producing mineral-driven Rieslings recognized internationally since the 1990s.

Frequently asked question

We will process and ship your order in 2-3 business days, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with tracking as soon as the Carrier scans the shipping label.

Ground shipping time depends on location, here's a breakdown:

West Coast: 1-2 business days
Midwest: 3-4 business days
East Coast: 5 business days

Process time is not shipping time. Shipping time starts from the days successive to the day of shipping, after the order has been processed.

See here our shipping policy.

Signature on delivery is mandatory for wine deliveries. Please make sure someone is at the shipping address to sign for the package.

If applicable, please consider delivering the package to a business address to ensure someone is available to sign for the package.

We also have the option of delivering the package to a Carrier's store for pickup. Please reach out to us to coordinate.

Carrier will try to delivery a package up to three times before returning the package to us.

See here our shipping policy.

If you miss a delivery and a package gets returned to us we have two options:

1) Reship the package right away: due to the very high cost of shipping and returns, we must charge a re-shipping fee to be determined based on package size and shipping destination.

2) Consolidate the returned package with your next order: this option is free of charge and it's the most popular option.

See here our shipping policy.

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