Marcus Hofschuster and Kim Schreiber have honoured 31 wineries from four countries this year. 18 received the prize for the "Collection of the Year", 13 wineries are their "Discoveries of the Year". Here are the winners of the season!
We award the "Collections of the Year" to wineries that made a particularly positive impression on us in the past season and impressed us with their particularly unique wines and ranges. These can be famous top producers, but also up-and-coming wineries whose performance has given us the impression that they are currently establishing themselves at the absolute top of the region.
The "Discoveries of the Year" are awarded to wineries that we were not aware of until recently or that have made the biggest leap in quality in their respective regions. We can recommend them to every wine lover who wants to get to know new top winemakers.
Whether we give an award also depends on how representative the wine entries from the respective region are, but also on how complete the eligible wineries have submitted their wines. It is also important to us how good the overall standard of the individual wine regions is. It is therefore possible that we will not award any prizes at all for some regions, while for others we may only award a Collection or a Discovery of the Year.
This year's award winners were selected from the tasting results of around 6,600 wines, which were generally blind tasted and often tasted several times. A total of 31 wineries from four countries can be delighted with their awards this year, 18 receive the prize for the "Collection of the Year" in their respective growing region, and we celebrate "Discoveries of the Year" in 13 regions.
This is not the first time we have honoured the Adeneuer family with the Collection of the Year. What impresses us here is not only the sheer quality, but also the very unique character of the wines. They are not copies of great role models, but rather first-class images of their origins. Even the inexpensive entry-level wines are of remarkable class.
Under the name Kalkbödele, the winery has long been known for good, often very good wines from the Tuniberg. Under winemaker Severin Stich and cellar master Sabeth Sedlatschek, the quality has once again increased significantly: the wines have become finer, nobler, and more precise across the board and are even among the best of their kind in the country. The Tuniberg has long been overshadowed by the neighbouring Kaiserstuhl. The new generation of winemakers at the Mathis brothers' winery is clearly working on changing this.
Richard Östreicher's cellar now produces some of the finest white wines in Franconia, indeed in the whole of Germany. We have not yet experienced better Silvaner here, and the Chardonnay is also of great class. The wines combine concentration, depth, and expressiveness with finesse and inner calm in a way that few producers can achieve. And, incidentally, one of the best red Bordeaux blends in the country is also produced here.
This small winery is somewhat overshadowed by far more famous wineries in Iphofen. Wrongly so: here you will not only find excellent Silvaner (also as sparkling wine), but also one of the best Müller-Thurgau wines ever.
Schloss Schönberg is the sister company of Sekthaus Griesel, which has established itself as one of the best sparkling wine producers in Germany in recent years. So it is no wonder that the still wines are also of remarkable quality. And that is almost an understatement; we have never tasted such good wines from the Hessische Bergstrasse!
Peter and Cecilia Jost have presented a series from which every wine can be recommended. Even the basic qualities are remarkably good. In addition, re-tastings of significantly older vintages repeatedly demonstrate the maturity of Jost's Rieslings—and not just at the top end.
Since Constantin Richter took over his parents' winery, it has moved ever closer to the top of the Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer wine estates. Today, his classic off-dry and sweet Rieslings are on a par with those of far more famous wineries. However, Richter has almost no competition in one area: he produces bone-dry, top-quality Rieslings from some of the legendary sites of the Middle Moselle, the likes of which have probably never been seen here before.
We should actually be celebrating this well-known winery as a rediscovery, as it has only recently started to regularly present its wines to us again after a break of over a decade. But time has not been wasted. Very good wines have been produced here for a long time, but they have probably never been as brilliant, exciting, and complex as they are today—from the dry wines to the stunning noble sweet wines.
In recent years, Caroline Diel has increasingly reduced her wines to the essentials. The dry Rieslings are not only free of residual sugar, but are also hardly fruity at all. Instead, they have a depth, complexity, tension, and mineral energy that is rarely found anywhere else in Germany. But the sweet and noble sweet wines are also brilliant. They are reliably accompanied by some of the best sparkling wines ever.
Reichsrat von Buhl's uncompromisingly dry, always firm and at the same time elegant, emphatically mineral Rieslings are always among our favourites in the Palatinate. This was also the case in 2024, where the estate had to assert itself against some competition. The Kirchenstück is one of the few really great Rieslings from the 2024 vintage and once again clearly stands out from a series of first-class Grosse Gewächse.
We have been tasting the estate's wines for a very long time—with some major interruptions. But the wines have never been as good as they have been recently. We were particularly surprised by the Rieslings from the Saumagen. At the same time, their prices remain reasonable.
There is probably no other winery in Germany that produces such deep, concentrated, and complex wines with such low alcohol levels as Theresa Breuer. And this is despite the fact that the wines today often appear much drier than was sometimes the case in the past. But as impressive as these Rieslings may be when young, they all need time to mature—which they reward in the end with quite unique wine experiences.
Eva Fricke has been known for quite some time now for her polished, lively, rather light-footed yet expressive Rieslings, but this is the first time she has officially presented a current vintage to us. And it did not disappoint us. We were particularly impressed by the concentrated, multi-layered "Melange", which easily rivals most of the region's Grosse Gewächse.
Daniel Wagner has surpassed himself in this truly challenging vintage. His 2024 series is probably one of the most impressive we have ever tasted here. At the top is a stunning Scharlachberg, one of our dry Rieslings of the year.
The wines from this top Württemberg winery have recently become even finer, more precise, and more elegant, without losing any of their expressiveness. The red wines are among the best in the country, the Sauvignons no less so. And the Rieslings are following suit! Not to mention the excellent sparkling wines and a Trollinger Rosé, which may be expensive, but is also very, very convincing.
Panoramaweingut Baumgärtner submitted 2025 for the first time—and did so with a fairly extensive series. This made it possible to convince us of the winery's reliability: the red and white wines are highly recommendable, even with less commonplace grape varieties. We look forward to seeing what happens next.
Even the base wines at Nittnaus possess a quality that is rarely found in their price range anywhere in the world—both white and red. The red top wines, on the other hand, with their blend of power and finesse, firmness and elegance as well as their freshness, depth, complexity, minerality, and beguiling juiciness, are among our favourite red wines—and not only in Austria.
This winery in southern Burgenland offers a wide range of white and red wines. Although we have only tasted a few of them so far, they all reveal very pleasing qualities in both the basic and premium ranges at extremely affordable prices.
The Gross winery probably needs no introduction. It's not just the Sauvignons that regularly reach world-class levels here, the Chardonnays are also great, and it's very difficult to find a better Pinot Blanc anywhere than the Nussberg Stauder. The fact that the wines mature perfectly is proven time and time again by samples from our archive. Sparkling wine from here is new to us: the Blanc de Blancs Grosse Reserve has real class and still looks young. Why are we not surprised?
Vietti combines classicism and modernity so skilfully in his Nebbiolos that only the best of both worlds come together here. Even when young, the wines are incredibly polished, beguiling, fine, and deceptively accessible, and yet they possess immense depth, the complexity of the great old traditionalists, and probably also their ability to develop—not despite, but precisely because of their somnambulistic balance. Even the basic Barolo here has a level that some others never reach with their top wines.
From just 1.4 hectares of vines in the best locations in Serralunga, Davide Fregonese produces complex, tightly knit Barolo wines of a more traditional style with all the expressiveness of their origin. They are rare, but it is worth keeping an eye out for them.
Like many top wineries in Tuscany and Piedmont, the Brunello vineyard Giodo, owned by the almost legendary oenologist Carlo Ferrini, also has vineyards on Mount Etna. The production is small, but the quality is all the greater. It will be debated for a long time whether the brilliant, incredibly mineral, expressive white wine has the edge or the dense, powerful, and yet fresh, almost cool red wine. You have to devote a lot of time to both in order to do them justice, but both are extremely worthwhile.
It is no news that among the many award-winning co-operatives, the one from Tramin is one of the best. However, the current range is of a quality that even a long-time connoisseur of the winery would not necessarily have expected. The Pinot Noir is probably better than ever, the Chardonnay "Troy" is in outstanding form and the Gewürztraminer is of a class that has few rivals worldwide: you can only take your hat off.
We have only tasted one wine here—but we won't forget it so easily. Such a fine, complex, deep, and, above all, despite its concentration, such a light-footed top-quality Lagrein will not be found a second time.
Carpineta Fontalpino has regularly caught our attention for many years. Even the basic Chianti from the Classico, but also the Colli Senesi, regularly rank among the best of their kind. The great single vineyards, now produced as Gran Selezione from 100 per cent Sangiovese, are stronger than ever, but the Bordeaux blend "Do ut des", made from one third each of Petit Verdot, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon, can easily compete with many of the more glorious Supertuscans. It just costs considerably less.
We have often been able to convince ourselves privately of the quality of Billecart-Salmon's champagnes. Now, for the first time, the winery has submitted a larger selection of its wines for tasting and has surpassed the already extremely positive impression. Particularly pleasing: despite their class, many of the wines are still affordable.
The wine and sparkling wine producers from Kaiserstuhl presented their sparkling wines for the first time last year and impressed us straight away. The favourable basic sparkling wines are all somewhat sweet and rounded, but by no means undemanding. The Brut Nature already show real class—and are still not too expensive.
