Every eatery in Germany offers a "Spargelkarte" (asparagus menu, to you!) that serves the usually white delicacy in a myriad styles from simply smothered in butter or hollandaise sauce to more elaborate methods of wrapping the stocks in Black Forest ham or other spicy meats.

In this tiny wine town of Saarburg, where growing Riesling is a religion, we are tasting the hand-crafted wines of Hanno Zilliken. We are seated in his dining room along with his wife, Ruth, who has been busy preparing a meal dominated by asparagus to match the seemingly endless onslaught of wines about to be poured.

The Zilliken wine caverns are the deepest and most elaborate on the Saar with 100% humidity, so moist that stalagmites grow downward from the ceiling and old, aging bottles of sweet Riesling collect a thick, black but perfectly harmless mould that helps keep the wine in pristine condition.

It's a little creepy deep in the cellar and looks much like a set straight out of Aliens, but it's been working perfectly for the Zilliken family for more than 50 years. And the wines made here? Some of the most thrilling Rieslings in the world, which makes our meal with Hanno and Ruth a treasured delight. Hanno brings out vintage after vintage of his monumental wines while Ruth serves up spargel wrapped in ham and drenched in butter, followed by pork loin roast, potatoes and more, yes, more spargel.

Zilliken is a typical quality German wine estate. It produces only 5,000 cases of wine, all 100% Riesling from steep-slope vineyards in the Saar River Valley that can be seen in the distance from the back porch. But the wines are anything but typical. Serious collectors put Zilliken's wines in the top 10 of all German wine estates. They have been described as "life altering."

What typifies Zilliken Rieslings is the bright acidity and intense minerality while maintaining that fruity style. "We are producing Rieslings with extreme aging potential," says Hanno.

His wines are hard to find in North America but his most recent, every day Riesling, called Butterfly ($20), is made in a screwcap twistoff and is perfect for consumers who crave quality German Riesling without all the sweetness. It's light and fruity with plenty of minerality, a hallmark of this region's wines.

But it's his wines from the Saarburger Rausch vineyard that gets your full attention. From the Kabinett, that's crisp, focused, concentrated and loaded with peach, apricot and white flower notes, to the Auslese Gold Cap with apricot, citrus rind, and honey notes all perfectly balanced to the most extraordinary sweet wine I have ever tasted, the Trockenbeernauslese No. 2 ($550 for a half bottle, if you must know) with candied pears, apricot extract, bracing acidity and pure, heavenly flavours, Zilliken has taken its place among the great wines of the world.

A much more modern estate, and one of the most popular German wines in North America, is St. Urbans-Hof. By German standards, where history is marked in centuries, St. Urbans-Hof is relatively new on the scene. It was founded in 1947 by Nicolaus Weis and is now managed and run by his grandson, Nik Weis.

Interestingly, Nik's father, Herman Weis, has a Canadian connection. In 1979 he planted the first Riesling grapes at what it is now Vineland Estates in Niagara. His first vintage was in 1983 but later, in 1992, ended up selling the venture to John Howard, who continues to make sensational Rieslings.

St. Urbans-Hof has parcels of land in some of the most sought-after locations in the Mosel-Saar Valley. Two in particular — the Ockfener Bockstein Vineyard and the Piesporter Goldtropfchen Vineyard — butt against the Saar River, a tributary of the Mosel, and rise up the gentle slopes, producing mineral-laden Rieslings with high acidity and unique flavours.