The quintessential intensity and delicacy of the 1971 and 1975 Mosel vintages wines is legendary among German wine connoisseurs, and a high-water mark for the growers that made them. There has been little like them over the last 40 years. Until 2015.

As John Gilman notes, the wines made in this near-perfect year will ultimately “be spoken of with the same reverence as vintages like 1961 in Bordeaux, 1978 in Burgundy or 1971 and 1975 in Germany—it is simply that magnificent.”

The quality at every quality level is historic, yet the pinnacle was reached in German Riesling’s most classic expression: Spätlese. Here, many of the Mosel’s top growers made the wines of their career. This includes the likes of Willi Schaefer, Hanno Zilliken, Max Ferdinand Richter and Schloss Lieser’s Thomas Haag.

We expect their 2015s to be among the first to vanish from the market. Perhaps forever.

So, we’ve been working behind the scenes to round up the 2015 Spatlesen of these four Mosel giants, assembling a mixed 6-pack that is as historic as the wines it contains.

Best of the Best

The estates represented in our set are among the greatest current practitioners of Mosel winemaking, and the cuvées we’ve selected are among 2015’s “greatest hits.” Above all, they demonstrate the extra gear that these growers possess to take what this historic year provided and fashion wines that place them head and shoulders above the rest.

Two of them need little introduction—both Willi Schaefer and Hanno Zilliken are widely revered for making some of the Mosel's most achingly beautiful Rieslings, with wonderful purity and balance, ethereally perfumed and laser-like in their expression of great terroirs.

For Schaefer that means the Graacher Domprobst, where the vines look straight down on Graach’s rooftops from the nearly vertical slope of blue-grey Devonian slate. And in 2015, the pick among the estate’s meticulously selected Spätlese micro-cuvées is the Graacher Domprobst #5, a wine which in the words of View from the Cellar’s John Gilman promises to become “a legend in due course.”

The Saarburger Rausch #8 is the top Spätlese in 2015 from Saar star Hanno Zilliken, the most vibrant and detailed of Zilliken’s Rausch Spät fuders in a year that Gilman feels “may well prove to be the very greatest vintage ever produced” at this hallowed domaine.

Old, Ungrafted Vines

In the Mühlheimer Sonnenlay, Weingut Max Ferd. Richter took full advantage not only of the 2015 vintage, but also of the estate’s ancient vines, to fashion what The Wine Advocate’s Stephen Reinhardt calls “world class Mosel classics from old, ungrafted vines that belong to the very best the exceptional 2015 vintage has to offer.” Richter’s off-dry Spätlese Feinherb, labeled Alte Reben due to its old vines, is a prime example.

Lastly, the historic Schloss Lieser’s Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr holding yielded perfect Spätlese-level fruit from its steep slope of decomposed Devon slate, and the gifted Thomas Haag made the most of it, using native yeasts and stainless steel for a stunningly pure expression of Brauneberg’s greatest terroir.

Here it is—a carefully-curated collection of four of 2015 Mosel Spätlese’s greatest cuvées, all for a bargain price. If you love the weightless intensity and soaring perfume that only Mosel Riesling can produce, this is an essential purchase.