With Willi Schaefer’s 2015 Graacher Domprobst Riesling Kabinett, I picture the kind of man you are always glad to have at your table.

He does not arrive first. But he is never late enough for anyone to be waiting for him. He comes without a grand gesture, without a story intended to take over the whole evening. The bottle he brings is probably wrapped in a tea towel—not out of carelessness, but because that sort of formality simply does not matter to him.

He is perhaps in his early sixties. Lean, wiry, with alert eyes and a face that speaks more of time spent outdoors than of any number of creams. He does not talk much about himself. Instead, he listens. And when he says something, it is usually at exactly the right moment. No grand aphorism, no line made for the next Instagram post. More a remark that at first seems almost offhand, then comes back to you later.

He has a dry sense of humour—the kind that is never at someone else’s expense. His warmth does not reveal itself immediately, but it is there. Perhaps, at some point, he silently sets something else down on the table, cuts more bread or tops up your glass before you have even thought to ask. With him, hospitality is never a pose.

His home is probably not in the city centre. More likely near a river, in an old house where not everything hangs perfectly straight. There are lemons, white peach and a bunch of herbs on the kitchen windowsill. The window is open, even though it has long since grown cooler outside. It smells of summer, but also of stone and the air after a shower.

That is exactly how this wine feels. It has the bright, juicy fruit of citrus, yellow and white peach. A fine sweetness that draws you in immediately, without ever becoming too eager to please. Beneath it, though, there is always that pull: clear, vibrant acidity, something herbal, something bitter-edged and that cool slate note which gives the wine its seriousness.

The man I see in it has seen a great deal. But he would never begin to lecture about it. He does not put his maturity on display. It reveals itself in his composure, in the way he reads a room, and in the fact that he never tries to look younger than he is.

Perhaps that is where this unmistakable depth comes from. The roughly century-old, ungrafted vines in the Domprobst lend this Kabinett substance and spice. And yet, at its core, it remains light-footed. It has grip, but no heaviness. It stays at the table for a long time without ever dominating it.

If the 2015 Graacher Domprobst Riesling Kabinett were a person, he would be the man who does not bring the most expensive bottle to dinner. But he would certainly bring the one everyone was still talking about the following morning.