The Forstmeister Geltz-Zilliken winery is located in the heart of Saarburg, the capital of Saar wine. Here in the tri-border region between Luxembourg, France, and Germany, some of the world's best Rieslings are produced in the world-renowned steep vineyard site Saarburger Rausch! Today, Dorothee Zilliken, together with her parents Hans-Joachim "Hanno" and Ruth, is the eleventh generation to manage the traditional estate. In 2016, the trained viticultural engineer took over the business after several national and international internships and introduced some innovations. The winery was traditionally known primarily for its noble sweet Rieslings, which, along with Egon Müller's Scharzhofbergers, have for decades been among the best the Saar has to offer. In 2017, Hanno Zilliken was named Winemaker of the Year by Gault-Millau, which is equivalent to an Oscar award. The laudation stated: "His wines possess timeless grandeur, far removed from any fashion trends [...] Everything is close to perfection, and so it was an easy decision to name Hans-Joachim Zilliken our Winemaker of the Year. Congratulations!" In addition, the winery is a candidate for Kabinett of the Year almost every year, an award from Gault-Millau that the winery has won multiple times (most recently in 2018). It is therefore not surprising that, in addition to Gault-Millau, Eichelmann, Falstaff, and other leading wine guides rank the winery among the top 20 estates in Germany. The experts particularly praise the aging potential of Zilliken wines, which has also earned them numerous first places in tastings 10 or 20 years later.

Since Dorothee took on more and more responsibility in the family business starting in the mid-2000s, a stronger focus has been placed on the production of dry wines, and so, since the 2009 vintage, the Rausch Große Gewächs, produced for the first time, has stood at the pinnacle of Zilliken's dry Rieslings. Fundamentally, the Saarburger Rausch is Zilliken's showpiece vineyard, where they are the largest owner with approximately 11 hectares, extracting incomparably delicate and playful Rieslings of world-class quality from the site. The name Rausch was by no means attributed to this site due to the intoxicating effect of its wines but is based on the Old German term "Steinrausch" – a term used to describe a scree slope where the topsoil had been washed down the mountain by erosion after heavy rainfall. Here, predominantly fine-grained, heavily weathered Devonian slate soil is found, interspersed with quartzite and diabase, a greenish shimmering volcanic rock. The vines here can root particularly deeply, allowing them to adequately supply themselves with water and minerals even during the longest dry periods in summer. This unique terroir, together with the prevailing microclimate of warming sunbeams, cool winds from the Mannebacher Valley, and morning mist from the Saar, produces Rieslings of incomparable elegance. In addition to the Saarburger Rausch, the winery has always owned one hectare of vines in Ockfener Bockstein, another world-renowned vineyard with a warmer microclimate and coarser Devonian slate soil. The Bockstein Rieslings always present themselves as more open and "fragrant" with riper fruit aromas compared to the delicate, floral Rieslings from Saarburger Rausch. The wines are more accessible when freshly bottled and therefore often offer more drinking pleasure at a young stage. Brand new to the portfolio is the Ayler Kupp, the third world-class vineyard owned by Zilliken. In 2018, a Kupp Großes Gewächs was produced here for the first time, meaning the winery now boasts three Große Lagen. However, it was a long and often arduous journey to get here, in which "strong women" played a decisive role:

The origins of the winery date back to 1742, meaning it has been family-owned for almost 280 years. The ancestors of the Zilliken family were winemakers in Saarburg and Ockfen, who bequeathed to them the parcels in the Saarburger Rausch and Ockfener Bockstein. The foundation for the winery's current success was laid by Dorothee's great-great-grandfather, Ferdinand Geltz (1851-1925), a Royal Prussian Master Forester, whose wines quickly became among the region's best. In 1908, he was also one of the founding members of the "Verein der Naturweinversteigerer Großer Ring," from which the VDP Mosel-Saar-Ruwer would later emerge. After his death, the vineyards were divided equally between his daughters, Antoinette and Ella, who guided them through the difficult times of the First World War. The Second World War was in a way a turning point in the winery's history, as the former manor house on the Beurig side was completely destroyed, along with its cellar, during a devastating bombing raid on Christmas 1944. After the war, Marianne, the Forester's granddaughter, married Fritz Zilliken, and thus the winery has borne its current name, Forstmeister Geltz-Zilliken, since 1947. In 1950, they both decided to acquire a two-story cellar on Heckingstraße on the other side of the Saar in Saarburg, which was subsequently developed into the winery's current headquarters and would become a decisive cornerstone of the Zilliken style.

The Zilliken family has always been 100% committed to Riesling and believes in strict yield limitation in the vineyard to unlock the grapes' greatest potential. The winery also owns several parcels with ancient, over 130-year-old ungrafted vines, which regularly produce some of the winery's best wines. Harvesting takes place in several passes, with various selections made if the vintage allows. It is therefore not uncommon for there to be several different AP numbers of the same predicate level from the same vineyard in some years, such as 2005. The lower the third-to-last digit of the Amtliche Prüfnummer (AP number) on the back of the label, the higher the wine ranks in Zilliken's internal quality assessment. Thus, AP -1- is always the best wine of the vintage, but depending on the vintage, it can either be the best of several Trockenbeerenauslese produced, or in weaker years "only" an auction Spätlese. The Zillikens are extremely detail-oriented and have raised their standards for the individual predicates so high over the years that they only produce the corresponding predicates in vintages when they are 100% convinced of the quality sensorially. The selected grapes are brought whole to the press, pressed directly, and guided by natural gravity to the cool cellar for fermentation, where natural yeasts slowly ferment the musts into wine.

The Zilliken's two-story cellar, built from slate quarry stones, is considered one of the deepest wine cellars on the Saar. Anyone entering this wondrous world for the first time immediately perceives with all their senses that this place is something very special. The air is clear and fresh, like in an ice cave. Here, a constant 11 degrees Celsius prevails throughout the year, and nearby springs ensure extremely high humidity, which on some days envelops parts of the cellar in a mystical mist. Throughout the cellar, water drips from the ceiling, and due to the highly mineral-rich water, centimeter-long stalactites have formed over the past decades. Additionally, the walls are covered centimeter-thick with a black cellar fungus. But anyone who now thinks the Zillikens should probably have their cellar thoroughly renovated is greatly mistaken! All the previously described conditions interact in a unique interplay, creating a probably unique biotope that provides ideal conditions for the slow fermentation and perfect maturation and storage of Zilliken wines. These are exclusively aged in old oak barrels, the classic Fuder, which, due to the high humidity, do not need to be topped up as is usually the case and are always completely full. These barrels are used for as long as possible, as the Zillikens appreciate the properties of the rougher, air-permeable oak barrels, as they help to better integrate the often crisp Saar acidity into their wines.

Zilliken stands for classic Saar Rieslings that are elegant and playful beyond measure. A typical Zilliken Riesling is delicate yet expressive, with fine minerality and a wonderfully animating play of sweetness and acidity. This light, ethereal, almost dancing mouthfeel evokes in many the image of a graceful prima ballerina. The sweet wines are otherworldly good, on par with Egon Müller. The dry wines, after more than 10 years, have now firmly established themselves among Germany's elite, setting new standards with their low alcohol content and simultaneously full flavor! All Zilliken wines offer a unique drinking pleasure. One often frantically searches for a hole in the bottom of the bottle, simply unable to comprehend how quickly the bottle emptied. With this alarming drinkability, most bottles struggle not to be consumed in the first year after bottling. However, those who show the discipline to let a few bottles mature in the cellar will be rewarded with an incomparably beautiful old wine experience.

In summary, Zilliken Winery perfectly combines tradition and modernity. On the one hand, there is the focus on Rieslings, cultivation in our steep vineyards, traditional aging with natural yeasts in Mosel oak casks in the cool, "stalactite-cave-like" cellar, and the traditional labels with the two family crests. On the other hand, there are sensible, targeted innovations, such as the semi-dry estate wine "BUTTERFLY" with its butterfly label, introduced in the 2002 vintage, or the cooperation with Andreas Vallendar and Denis Reinhardt, which resulted in the famous FERDINAND'S GIN, which has been making waves nationally and internationally since 2013. The first gin from the Saar is named after the winery's founder, Master Forester Ferdinand Geltz, and in addition to the use of regional botanicals, the unique selling point of this exceptional gin is the splash of Forstmeister Geltz-Zilliken wine with which every bottle of FERDINAND'S GIN is infused.