Markus Molitor is the most expansive privately-held estate in the Mosel Valley, farming 120 hectares across the steepest terraced slate vineyards of the Middle Mosel and Saar with extraordinary care and consistency. While Molitor’s identity rests on his Rieslings, which span every level from featherweight Kabinett to extraordinary Trockenbeerenauslese and have attracted wide critical attention across the approved publications, he has also developed a Pinot Noir programme of genuine ambition over the past decade, drawing on selected Mosel vineyard parcels whose warming microclimate and ancient slate soils provide an unusual and compelling context for the variety. The Three Star designation within Molitor’s hierarchy marks the highest tier of selection for any given wine, representing the cellar’s most carefully chosen and fully aged material.

The Brauneberger Klostergarten is a celebrated vineyard site in the village of Brauneberg, whose south-facing slate terraces above the Mosel produce wines of great concentration and mineral character. Brauneberg was historically regarded as the finest village on the Middle Mosel, and the Klostergarten site has a documented history stretching back to the medieval monastic viticulture from which it takes its name. Pinot Noir from this slate terroir in a warm vintage such as 2020 produces a wine of unusual character: the mineral precision and fine-grained texture of the Mosel soil combine with the generous fruit of a ripe year to give a wine that owes something to Burgundy in structure while remaining distinctively Moselian in its mineral identity.

The Molitor Pinot Noir programme has not yet attracted systematic coverage from the five approved publications, whose attention to this producer has focused almost entirely on the Riesling range. This is consistent with the general pattern of critical engagement with Mosel Pinot Noir, a category that remains outside the primary focus of Wine Advocate, Vinous, Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast in their German coverage. The Three Star Brauneberger Klostergarten represents Molitor’s finest statement in this category and is a wine of genuine interest and quality for collectors willing to explore beyond the conventional German Riesling canon.

Pale ruby with a delicate and mineral nose of red cherry, raspberry, rose petal, wet slate, dried herbs and a light spice note from barrel ageing in older oak. Light to medium-bodied on the palate with very fine tannins, excellent natural acidity from the Mosel terroir and a long, mineral, Burgundian-influenced finish. Drink now through 2032.