Dr. Hermann
Erdener Pralat Trockenbeerenauslese Alte Reben Goldkapsel
Erden
2018

The producer

Winemaking has been in the Dr Hermann family for centuries, yet the modern history doesn’t start until 1967 when the current estate – with base in the town of Urzig – is formed. Today owning 9 hectares in some of the best vineyards in Urzig and Erden, including the highly esteemed ‘Erdener Pralat’, Rudy Hermann is in charge along with son Christian, who joined as winemaker in 2001. 

The 1.5-hectare Erdener Pralat vineyard, in Erden, is Dr Hermann’s pride and joy, and a vineyard of exceptional potential.

The wine

The Erdener Pralat vineyard has an exceptionally warm microclimate thanks to its location, sandwiched between the Rhone River and the rocky mountains. On a steep slope and facing directly south and has a unique soil composition of blue Devon slate with red iron oxide. Vines are 60-100 years old and ungrafted.

Wines from here are richly textured and opulent yet with incredible aromatic finesse and precision. The Goldkapsel moniker is used to denote an additional level of quality within a Pradikat, such as for example Auslese, but is not regulated by German wine law. It is a kind of limited edition, best production of the vintage or lot, which is not made every year.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.