"Kirchspiel is a great vineyard and screams its grand cru status (Grosses Gewächs) upon opening. It’s always readier out of the gates—in the range of other growers as well—and for many reasons. Shaped like an amphitheater facing toward the Rhine River (but still roughly five miles away by air to the closest point) with its southeastern exposure an average of around a thirty percent gradient, its bedrock and topsoil is composed of clay marls, limestone and loess. It’s a warmer site than Morstein because of its lower altitude (between 140m-180m) along with the curvature of the hillside that allows it to maintain greater warmth inside this small but sheltering topographical feature from cold westerly winds. Katharina Wechsler has three different parcels in this large vineyard with reasonably good separation, giving the resulting wines a broader range of complexity and greater balance." -Importer Note