Vinum Lignum® Rein Riesling

The Mathiers came to Salgesch in 1387. Originally from Marseille, they migrated to Switzerland via Grenoble. The reason for this was poverty and the opportunity to earn money abroad as mercenaries. The Mathiers were recruited for military service in Valais and, after completing their duty, decided not to return to their homeland but to settle in Salgesch. They soon discovered that the area was ideal for winegrowing. And they realized that a good glass of wine was far more conducive to life than warfare. Albert Mathier - as the name suggests, the founder of Albert Mathier & Söhne AG - was born in 1891, the second of nine children. He married Monika in 1918. This marriage produced five children. When the global economy hit rock bottom, the family tried to defy the recession by plowing up fields and meadows and planting vines. With their winery, they laid the foundations for their own wine history and that of the red wine metropolis of Salgesch.

In search of the roots of viticulture, the current owner Amédée Mathier traveled to Georgia in 2008 to visit various wineries and private winegrowers who produced Qvevri wines. Although he didn't like everything - the natural fermentation in clay vessels is delicate and can cause mistakes - he was fascinated by this archaic way of making wine. He realized that these wines spoke a completely different language to the ones we are used to drinking. He decided to produce wines in the traditional Georgian style in future and imported eight original Qvevris from Georgia that same year. Since then, the company has been the first winery in Switzerland to produce grapes and wines in traditional Georgian qvevris (clay vessels), which were made in Georgia and transported from there to Switzerland. The Albert Mathier & Sons wine family is thus taking on a pioneering role in our country in the revival of the world's oldest, 8000-year-old winemaking method, which is protected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The Albert Mathier & Söhne winery is a small family business that is committed to the enjoyment of wine lovers and has literally won awards: year after year, the liquid flagships of the Albert Mathier & Söhne wine family can be found at the top of the rankings in national and international wine competitions. Medals, diplomas and certificates that prove what you experience when you drink them: Quality of the very highest order. This winery is bursting with dynamism! On the basis of secure and highly proven Valais values, real innovations thrive here.

Riesling is an absolute terroir grape variety that distinctly reflects the external conditions in which the vines have grown. Depending on the composition of the vineyard soils and the climatic influences, Riesling produces very different wines. Riesling produces the best results in cool-climate growing regions, but then places very high demands on the location, as the grape variety only ripens very late. The distinctly varietal flavour of Riesling is usually determined by fruity notes reminiscent of peach or apricot or even tropical fruit; the minerality of the soil is often clearly reflected in the bouquet of the wine. On the palate, the wines always have a zesty acidity to counterbalance the intense fruit of the grape variety and are crisp, lively, fresh, steely and elegant in flavour. Good Rieslings have considerable ageing potential and develop a multi-layered complexity over the years with flavours of almonds, honey and a distinctive petrol tone, while the acidity gains in harmony with increasing maturity.

Similar to Chenin Blanc, Riesling is a grape variety that allows a wide variety of wines to be produced - from lean and dry to expansive and richly sweet. In addition to first-class, dry Rieslings, which range from down-to-earth everyday wines in litre bottles to limited top wines, Riesling grapes can also be used to produce first-class sparkling wines from classic bottle fermentation, semi-dry Kabinett wines and numerous noble sweet Prädikat wines such as Auslese, Trockenbeerenauslese or ice wines with decades of ageing potential.

Learn more about this grape variety