When it comes to making Rieslings, Jochen Beurer stands as a man apart. A one time European BMX champion running a small garagiste estate in Swabia, at the farthest southern end of Germany, Jochen could hardly be farther removed from the staid, landed traditions of his more Northern neighbors, and his dry, terroir saturated wines from a variety of Jurassic and Triassic soils on the hills around Kernen im Remstal have similarly little in common with historical conceptions of “German Riesling.” These are, first and foremost, Swabian wines, steeped in the traditions of a region that has long remained outside the national mainstream.

The Beurer family have farmed the land in Kernen, just outside of Stuttgart, for generations, growing fruit and making wine that, as with many Swabian vine growers, ended up in the bottles of the local coop (the Remstalkellerei). Then, in 1997, former European BMX champion, Jochen, his wife Marion and father Sigfried set out on their own, making and bottling the wine for themselves (for the first two years, the winery literally was a garage).

In 2003 Jochen started experimenting with organic viticulture and spontaneous fermentations, converting fully to biodynamics over the next few years.  And as these things have gone along, Jochen and his wines have found their own inimitable voice. He is a man who does things very much his own way, and that way yields some of the most remarkable, terroir expressive wines we know. In fact, we can think of no other winemaker whose wines speak of the soil -- a mixture of ancient lime- and sandstones, and the ancient Keuper soils beneath them -- as much as Jochen’s do.