The 1868 Prussian cadaster of Piesport.

Domherr is a warm terroir in deep-draining, well-weathered slate. And Heinz Welter prefers to make dry Riesling from his parcel here. He does some skin contact and ferments with wild yeasts. In ’08, he made a Kabinett rather than a Spätlese trocken, but this is not your light, tart-tasting dry Kabi. His tank-aged 2008 Domherr Kabinett trocken reflects the warmth of this stony vineyard with herbs and a real depth of flavor. It hints more to the South with a lightly golden color and creaminess than a cooler clime would, but keeps everything nicely in check with a good spine of acidity to match the substance. There’s a bite to the finish that keeps you asking for more.

New Steinmetz retro label will adorn all bottles beginning with the 2009 vintage.

In late December, I was invited to an impressive back-vintage tasting of diverse Mosel Riesling at Weingut Günther Steinmetz in Brauneberg. Because I foolishly discarded my scribbled notes, I cannot recall all the fine details of the event, but here’s what I did remember:

After all the bottles had been carefully uncorked and lined up, we began with two 1971s, a highly sought-after vintage (and my birth year!), and worked back through the decades to a 1921 Piesporter. Several of the wines, including a 1971 Graacher Himmelreich (Bergweiler-Prüm), 1952 Brauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr (Ferdinand Haag), and several Wehlener (1940 Lay, 1938 Rosenberg, and 1937), were sourced from a cellar in Mülheim. The Steinmetzes had vintages from the early sixties and late fifties on hand. And Gernot Kollmann, who now runs Immich-Batterieberg, had brought six different vintages directly from the estate’s cellar in Enkirch.

The 1971 Graacher was oxidized, but the ’71 Enkircher Ellergrub from Immich was in fine form with surprisingly bright acidity. We followed these two with a 1967 Eitelsbacher Karthäuserhofberger Sang Spätlese, which was unfortunately showing oxidation as well. In the 1960s Weingut Karthäuserhof had some remarkable bottlings known for their warmth and generosity, not the terms most often associated with the estate’s wines today, but sadly we couldn’t get a good look at the wine through the oxidation here. (For a period of time up until the mid 1980s, Karthäuserhof had bottled their wines from the iron-rich Karthäuserhofberg according to five former place-names: Burgberg, Kronenberg, Orthsberg, Sang, and Stirn.)

Although there was an occasional off-putting bottle or wines simply past their prime, the tasting revealed some real gems. Stefan Steinmetz’s father, Günther, who joined us for the occasion, made his first wine as a 17-year-old in 1958.  And we were fortunate to taste a bottle from this vintage: a 1958 Brauneberger Mandelgraben naturrein from Willi Steinmetz. (On old labels naturrein means literally “naturally pure,”  and was the pre-1971 Wine Law term for a non-chaptalized wine before today’s Prädikat system, which had created Kabinett to go along with Spätlese, Auslese, and so forth. Willi Steinmetz was the former name of Weingut Günther Steinmetz.). In those early years, until the sterile filter became readily available to more small growers, he produced mostly dry Riesling. In addition to the ’58 Mandelgraben, we were treated to his ’59 Brauneberger Hasenläufer Auslese and a ’60 Brauneberger Juffer naturrein. All three were still exquisite and vibrant. One of my favorites was the 1960 Juffer, which had less than 2 grams per liter residual sugar.  It was an absolutely stunning bottle of Mosel Riesling, especially from a “lesser” vintage.

Among the other highlights was a ’64 Enkircher Batterieberg Auslese from Immich-Batterieberg. As with the 1953 Ellergrub (naturrein), both had been recorked at the domaine, which surely made them taste differently and younger than had they not been recorked. On the other hand, the oldest vintages—1949 and 1938 Batterieberg—still had original corks and were strikingly youthful, an incredible sign of just how long Mosel Riesling can age.

Though he’s one of the wine world’s great talkers, Ulli Stein knows that words alone will not be enough to confront the economic and spiritual crises currently—and urgently—threatening the great traditions of Mosel winemaking (including sites such as Bremmer Calmont, pictured above). Below is a call to action from Ulli, already generating significant response in the region, here translated in full.

Thorns instead of vines!

Alf/Mosel, January 2010

Viticulture on the Mosel has already experienced plenty of crises—and survived! But the ultimate endgame now threatens those old Riesling vines in the greatest steep slate slopes throughout our region.

While on the one hand thousands of euros are spent at wine auctions for a single bottle of Mosel Riesling, and though for many growers who market their own wines all is well, the price for 1000 liters of Riesling (in barrel) now sits at 600 euros. Many part-time winemakers, who have long worked age-old vineyards of extreme steepness and scenic beauty, are finally giving up. The reasons are not only economic but also psychological: if the oft-mentioned “heroic” work in the steepest vineyards not only fails to generate profit but also engenders massive losses, then that signals, in the end, an extremely low regard not only for the work but also for the people engaged in it.

The causes of this unfortunate development are diverse and complex. Mistakes have been made by all involved, including Weinkellereien, winemakers, consultants, and lawmakers. A sampling of what’s gone wrong:

• in the past, too many Weinkellereien (merchant houses/négociants) have placed too little value on quality, have bought and sold junk (as long as the price is low!), and have led the names “Riesling” and “Mosel” into the bargain bins of supermarket shelves, from which they can no longer escape.
• many winemakers have fashioned their wines accordingly, accepted any price, shared their frustrations above all with their children, in word and deed emphatically warning them against the life of a wine grower.
• consultants and lawmakers have fixated single-mindedly on sugar content as the exclusive criteria for quality; propagated the “wrong” varietals (like Kerner); and encouraged questionable winemaking methods (i.e., sweet reserve, de-acidification, etc.)
• and at the end of the day, roughly 90% of all consumers refuse to pay more than 2.99 euros for a bottle of wine, regardless of whether the label indicates Riesling from steep slopes or Pinot Grigio from the Po Valley.

This all sounds rather pessimistic, though sadly with good reason. Half of all vines in my village of St. Aldegund will be grubbed up in the coming months, and in the next two years it will be another quarter. A similar fate awaits the neighboring villages (Alf, Bullay, Neef). Most of those winemakers who are still active are over 60 years old, and for many there is no successor in sight.

Soon the two-thousand-year-old winemaking landscape will cease to exist in many places along the Mosel. Whether the oft-mentioned tourists will still come to gaze upon blackberry bushes remains to be seen.

Despite positive changes on the Mosel, such as rising wine quality among those growers who sell and market their own wines; a slowly increasing number of apprentices; the re-cultivation of vineyards (such as Bremmer Calmont); and such large-scale collaborations as Weingut Kallfelz’s purchase and renovation of the local teaching and research station, viticulture in many sectors is seriously imperiled. Faced in the coming years with the threat of 3000 hectares of soon-to-be-fallow steep sites—one-third of the entire Mosel region—slogans of perseverance (“we have to look to the future, not bemoan what is lost”) will be of as little use as supplication at the feet of the Kellereien. Such approaches obstruct our view of the bitter reality and prevent effective counter-measures, among them the following small and feasible goals:

1. Every estate that directly markets its own wines but that also purchases grapes, must, or wine from colleagues should pay—for Riesling from steep slopes with at least 70° Oechsle—a baseline price of 1200 euros, and for each degree increase in Oecshle an additional 50 euros more. (We’ve been doing this successfully for years with several hectares of steep sites and receive, for a fair price, grapes of corresponding quality.)
2. Every grape-grower who wants to uproot vineyards in steep sites on account of low prices should speak to local winemakers in an effort to achieve better prices. (See Point 1.)
3. Faced with an offer of 60 cents per liter of Riesling, bulk grape-growers should consider simply refusing to sell. Not for that price! Come what may! Hold out! Maintain a measure of self-respect!
4. In-house and intra-estate reorganization (in the case of older winemakers of declining strength) in which lesser sites are relinquished in favor of those steep slopes that define the Mosel landscape and are responsible for the reputation of her wines.
5. The quality of wine produced by those estates that sell and market their own wines must be improved through simple, cost-friendly measures, among them a more selective and—as a rule—later harvest, lower yields, little or no fertilizer, controlled fermentation, etc. At the same time, the value—now also reflected in the glass!—of these steep-slope Rieslings must result in higher prices. There can be no more 3 euro Riesling Spätlese from famed steep sites (like Bremmer Calmont), no more high-quality estates consistently undercutting each other’s prices.
6. Winemakers can and must develop more courage and self-confidence; stand more firmly behind their product; demand from customers an appropriate price for quality; and not tell themselves “I’ll never be able to do that” without ever having tried.
7. Full-time estates should more carefully consider the possibility of taking over certain sites, bearing in mind especially the increased costs of helicopter spraying when, within a given vineyard, only a patchwork of plots remain under cultivation. (Fallow sites need not be sprayed, of course, so the helicopter is continually turning its machine on and off, increasing both the time and cost of the operation, and those costs are shared among vineyard-owners. As a cost-cutting measure, the helicopter service is often dropped, resulting in a further incentive for growers to give up on steep sites.)
8. All winemakers and non-winemakers, including those who rent rooms to tourists, hotel and restaurant proprietors, and other affiliated businesspeople should place more value on the importance of the steep slopes and embrace and communicate that value accordingly.
9. Finally, all involved should treat each other with less envy and spite and instead aim toward solidarity and tolerance.

The preceding sober depiction is not intended to aid and abet resignation, but instead aims to snap people to attention and to serve as a call to action. On the heels of recent notable examples of vineyard rescue must follow more of the same. It is at least worth a try—if not on our own account, at least for the old Riesling vines. They can’t do a thing about it! And they deserve our protection from thorns.

Dr. Ulrich Stein
Winemaker and Oenologist
Alf/Mosel

(Translated by Dan Melia, with assistance from David Schildknecht)

As a play on tobacco packaging health warnings, the Steins have their own message: Stein-Wein warnt: Nichttrinken schadet Ihrer Gesundheit! [Stein-Wine warns: not drinking is bad for your health!]

You’ll have to wait until the Director’s Cut is released on DVD to learn exactly where in the vineyard Ulli’s 87-year-old father maintains his underground stash of Palmberg bottles.

Ulli standing in front of a barrel of 2008 Palmberg trocken. Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

In the 2008 vintage, for the first time in several years, Ulli Stein made a legally dry, rather than off-dry, Spätlese from his 40- to 100-year-old vines in Palmberg-Terrassen. Harvested on November 7 and 8, the Steins put the ripe, non-destemmed grape bunches into a crusher followed by a cool 16-hour pre-fermentation maceration. After a gentle pneumatic pressing followed by natural sedimentation in tank, the juice went into two old barrels, where fermentation started spontaneously. The wines were left on their gross lees in Fuder until bottling. For those looking for an analysis, 2008 St. Aldegunder Palmberg-Terrassen Spätlese trocken has 96° Oechsle,  12.1% alcohol by volume, 8.6 grams per liter acidity, and 8 grams per liter residual sugar.

Ulli Stein would be the first to admit that vineyards such as the imposing Winninger Uhlen or the renowned Wehlener Sonnenuhr are historically nobler in rank than the unsung St. Aldegunder Palmberg-Terrassen. Notwithstanding, he has shown over the years that his beloved Palmberg makes for more expressive wines than many famous sites along the Mosel. Even some more highly touted sites that Ulli works are not without their complications. For instance, the neighboring Bremmer Calmont, the steepest vineyard in Europe, suffers now from a lack of water in hot years—because of climate change, so do many top vineyards—but this remains a relative non-issue for the sheltered, less drought-prone Palmberg-Terrassen. With sufficient water at the top of the slope, Palmberg’s grapes tend to be more vigorous and can hang longer on the vines, so that, even with comparable Oechsle levels, the grapes and resulting wines from Palmberg normally have 2 g/l acidity more than those from Calmont. (In 2008, Ulli decided against bottling his dry Riesling from Calmont as Spätlese even though the grapes were ripe enough to qualify, because he felt the wine lacked the necessary definition and quality for this Prädikat. Unlike the VDP-labeling trend towards Grosses Gewächs and away from the use of Prädikat designations for dry Riesling, Ulli continues to label his top dry wines as “Spätlese trocken.” This, of course, is a topic for another post.)

When traveling down the Lower Mosel to Koblenz, even before reaching the grand single vineyards (Uhlen, Hamm, and Röttgen) of Winningen, many sites seem more striking than Palmberg-Terrassen. Yet once in the idyllic, steep-terraced Palmberg, it becomes apparent how special this site really is. (“Palm” is patois for Buchsbaum, boxwood, a shrub prevalent around the Mediterranean that also grows on this hillside.) Besides the 35- to 90-year-old vines rooted deep in weathered blue and gray slate, this side-valley vineyard is protected from the north and east winds, and, as mentioned earlier, has adequate water from a spring situated above, which supplies even in dry years the greater part of the vineyard with enough water.

After the Second World War, when others ignored its promise, Ulli’s father re-cultivated what had become largely wild terrain. He pruned old vines, planted new ones, repaired drywall terraces, cleared small sections and planted anew, put in fresh wooden stakes, and removed hedges. Over the decades he and Ulli have treated it as a kind of vineyard-garden hybird (at his house, Ulli’s 87-year-old dad has a truly amazing garden), and even now it reflects a gardener’s exacting, loving attention to detail and beauty. In fact, Ulli’s dad has a mini-terraced shrine within Palmberg and, behind a shed nearby, a secret hiding place in the ground to keep bottles of Palmberg readily chilled for drinking. He still consumes a bottle a day at his ripe old age.

Of course, there are so many other unheralded vineyards, jutting up from the Mosel or running along side valleys, including some in the nearby village of Zell, a source we think of only for cheap brand wines like Zeller Schwarze Katz. Zell’s “problem” is that it has lacked a great winemaker to match the potential greatness of its vineyards, the same for the area around Burg, where both the hillside setting and the bridge-crossing further downstream is reminiscent of Wehlen. Who knows this section of the Mosel? Or better yet: which winemaker will have the ambition (and the capital) to attempt to make something special from these sites? Wolfer Goldgrube is as impressive as many an oxbow on the Mosel, and only has regained some of its former acclaim in the last several years because of Daniel Vollenweider’s intensive efforts to rejuvenate both its vines and its reputation. How many so-called Mosel wine experts recognize the name Trarbacher Hühnerberg, now farmed primarily by the traditionalist Martin Müllen? It’s located along the Kautenbach, one of the many tributaries (Saar, Olewiger Bach, Ruwer, and Dhron among others) running through the Hunsrück, and was also a highly-ranked vineyard in the nineteenth century.

All this speaks to the difficulty of trying to classify vineyards. Palmberg-Terrassen, despite being modestly tucked behind the village of St. Aldegund, is in its best sections an ideal spot to grow Riesling. In addition, almost all the vines, which are trained in the traditional manner on wooden stakes, are ungrafted, on average 70 years old, and well-kept on steep, terraced, stony-slate soils. (Click on this winter photo to get a better idea.)

Many of the famous Middle Mosel sites have been restructured (Flurbereinigung) to make them more economical to work and then replanted (usually wire-trained) with clones. Fortunately, there are growers who seek out old vines in steep, often terraced, vineyards that can only be worked by hand with vines trained on wooden stakes. Clemens Busch continues to reclaim some of the best and steepest sites within Pündericher Marienburg, notably in Rothenpfad and Falkenlay. Florian Lauer (Weingut Peter Lauer) has saved a terraced plot of old vines on the top of a cliff in the forgotten Schonfels, and Andreas Adam (Weingut A.J. Adam) has acquired a well-situated, terraced parcel in Goldtröpfchen. Few vintners want to work such sites, because it doesn’t pay. The steepest sections of the well-known Saarburger Rausch, those further west and lower down the slope, lie fallow; it is the higher, flatter area that has been renewed and can be worked more easily by tractor.

Since the 1940s, Ulli’s father and later Ulli have only been replanting non-grafted vines from their own cuttings via sélection massale (mass selection)—the old, traditional method. And they didn’t evaluate the grape quality of those vines merely based on their grapes’ sugar levels or plumpness, but rather they propagated those that fulfilled the following criteria (here the sequence in order of importance):

• Small, loose grape bunches with tiny berries of which 20 to 80 percent include millerandage, i.e., plenty of small, seedless berries, with a high skin-to-juice ratio, and a high concentration of acidity, aroma, and sugar.
• Healthy grapes with no stem disease, no fungus, and little rot, when then “noble rot.”
• Yellow to brown berries, with brown spots like freckles.

The old vines were evaluated over many years, before and during the harvest, and correspondingly tagged. Vines that are tagged 22 to 25 times within 25 years have been used for propagation. “This means that our Riesling vines are our own ‘clones,’ namely selected material with, as much as possible, uniform genetic potential, only we have applied entirely different criteria than by the modern Geisenheimer, Neustädter, and other Riesling clones, which were only selected for yield and fruit ripeness,” explained Ulli.

Even if he acquires new plots with dormant old vines, Ulli only replaces them if they no longer yield fruit or are attacked by disease, such as esca, and he does so one at a time, rather than grubbing up an entire section of old vines.

Looking at Palmberg-Terrassen, with its nooks and crannies among the numerous dry-wall terraces on predominantly blue-gray slate, it becomes apparent how complex researching just one singular site can be. For instance, the original Aldegunder Palmberg—no “St.” or “-Terrassen” (terraces) attached to the name back then—was a smaller site and had different boundaries in the past.

Ulli writes, “amongst other things, the 1971 German Wine Law destroyed both the diversity of single vineyards and their historic individuality, cultivated for centuries. The merging of smaller, individual sites into larger vineyards was supposed to simplifiy things for the ‘consumer.’ Instead, it served the Großkellereien [large bulk producers], which could buy more wine from one (persumably more familiar) expanded site and could use the best site names also for flatland vineyards now legally incorporated under that name. Palmberg-Terrassen was similarly enlarged, but included only steep slopes and the damage was not nearly as bad as elsewhere.”

Since 1971, St. Aldegunder Palmberg-Terrassen incorporates three former place-names:

• Palmberg. The western and main part of the steep slope, south facing. (Certain sections, especially the western edge and highest terraces, have been overgrown with shrubs since the 1960s. )
• Hötlay. The impressive terraced knoll, jutting out east of Palmberg, also south facing.
• Rosenberg. An east-facing climat around the bend. (Ulli doesn’t consider this section to be a part of Palmberg-Terrassen. On the panoramic photo, it cannot be seen and almost 95 percent now lies fallow.)

Formerly, the three sites totaled around 20 hectares (49.4 acres), only 4 hectares (!) of which are now planted with vines. Of these 4 hectares, 1 hectare is in the “original” Palmberg and 3 hectares in Hötlay. The Steins have sole ownership (a quasi monopole) of the original Palmberg and own 0.3 hectares and rent another 0.5 hectares in the former Hötlay, meaning that their 1.8 total hectares represent 45% ownership of the post-1971 Palmberg-Terrassen.

As with our first ever liter offering for NYC this autumn, we have also selected a separate old-school, dry-tasting Mosel Riesling bottled in 750 ml for Triage Wines, our distributor in the Pacific Northwest. Both wines are adorned with Weingut Günther Steinmetz’s retro label.

The special entry-level bottling for Triage Wines comes from a 0.37-hectare block of Riesling (planted in 1973) in the steep-slate section of the single-vineyard Brauneberger Mandelgraben, a forgotten east-facing slope, behind the village of Brauneberg. The site, which runs along a side valley towards the Hunsrück, away from the Mosel River, is a cooler Middle Mosel clime, much like the Saar and Ruwer. In 1963 and later in 1968, the vineyard area was enlarged to include less-privileged, flatter sections deficient of slate. Stefan Steinmetz says that the core Mandelgraben tends to give wines with a pronounced acidity and minerality.

Stefan picked all the ripe grapes en bloc, that is in only one passing, rather than doing multiple passes with selective harvesting. The grapes were lightly crushed and pressed, without skin contact, and fermented with wild yeasts on the lees in two old barrels. Unlike many other Mosel estates’ Gutsriesling—which often come from purchased grapes or even juice, are normally made with inoculated yeasts, and are usually sulfured and bottled quite early—this wine naturally fermented at its own pace and finished with 14.1 g/l residual sugar and 8.3 g/l acidity. The wine has an uncomplicated, lovely purity, nothing forced about it. It’s light in both color and body (10% alcohol by volume). And unlike many other wines in this “category,” it is neither cloyingly sweet nor tartly trocken, and even better, it actually improves while open—a good thing, because the first glass offers what the Germans call Lust auf mehr, or desire for more. Drink up.

Harvesters at Schonfels on the Saar. Photograph from Florian Lauer.

Florian Lauer of Weingut Peter Lauer had some additional 2009 harvest facts that I’ve translated below:

• Must weights mostly between 90° and under 100° Oechsle.
• Acidities pleasantly stable at higher ripeness levels (9.5 to 11.0 g/l); we don’t need to acidify, as in other wine regions (e.g., the Pfalz).
• Grapes very healthy; little botrytis, when then clean and dry.
• Ripe, dried raisins and berries, ideal for BA and TBA.
• Young vines inferior because of a lack of water in September.
• Old vines very good—since longer roots, enough water.
• Oct. 20 frost of minus 4.5 °C froze the leaves in less well-situated vineyards.
• “Saarfeilser” one of the only sites on the Saar that had green leaves, hence great ripeness.
• Early frost could result in a lack of reserves in the coming vintage, because vines assimilate nutrients from the leaves. Already one day after the frost, there were no more leaves on the vines this year.
• We’re not producing any Eiswein! I don’t like Eiswein and prefer a fine BA instead.

After pointing out Weingut Peter Lauer’s harvest report to the wine critic David Schildknecht, he kindly translated the text himself and let me post it on our blog:

FLORIAN & PETER LAUER (WEINGUT PETER LAUER, AYL) WRITE: [and you can see their photos and the original, version of this report here]

The Saar Brings in a Fantastic 2009 Harvest

Since mid-September, our Riesling grapes in the steep slate slopes have been ripening under absolutely ideal conditions. The weather during the late months of ripening (September and October) was a critical determinant of the health, concentration, and aromas of the grapes, which are being harvested now in October, and into November.

The berries are very tiny and the clusters loose—thanks to our having divided them in summer. (This consists of cutting the individual bunch in the middle, precisely at the spot where otherwise unfavorable early botrytis appears and leads to unripe rot.)

The dry first half of October gave us top cuvées of quality comparable to the 1999s or 2005s. In the upper levels [of ripeness] this vintage leaves no wish unfulfilled: From Spät- and Auslese through BA and TBA (Trockenbeerenauslese with well over 200 degrees Oechsle) with terrific interplay [of flavors] and endless nervosité [Spannung—never have found an English word to convey this, literally meaning tension] between fruit and mineral-crystalline Saar acidty, everything is present that makes up [great] Riesling.

The dry September made it difficult for our newly-planted and young vines, and led to premature ripeness. By contrast, our many parcels with old vines—with their long, deep roots—were ideally suited for the dry autumn. Here, one tastes in the fresh must the energy and expressivity of the vintage [:] tension [English in original].

Stefan Steinmetz in his Unimog during the 2008 harvest. Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

On October 30, Stefan Steinmetz at Weingut Günther Steinmetz had this to report about the 2009 vintage:

Here are a few facts from autumn: for the Pinot varieties [Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, and Pinot Gris] we had yields of 20 hl/ha, thus very low. Qualities [must weights] range from 100° to 108° Oechsle. For Riesling we had yields of 40 hl/ha, also very low. This doesn’t seem to be, for us at least, only due to [vine] disease (peronospora), but mostly from the vintage, because we had for Riesling no losses from peronospora [a common vine disease that occurs in warm, humid conditions, also known as downy mildew].

Qualities range so far from 85° to 108° Oechsle for all the vineyards that have been harvested up until now. In the main sites [predominantly Brauneberger Juffer] we have only begun to harvest in the last two days. [Wintricher] Geierslay had 94° Oechsle for healthy grapes; those affected by botrytis were about 107°. Yields here were 20 hl/ha, likewise extremely low. The section with [vines trained on] wooden stakes we will leave hanging to the end for absolute ripeness. (For the old vines in Veldenz and Mülheim we selected pure healthy grape bunches with 93° and 94° Oechsle.)

In the Juffer, we’re picking today the Devon [Stefan's special dry-tasting cuvée from the former site called Hasenläufer, below Kammer, at the foot of the Brauneberger hillside] that has around 95° Oechsle from what we measured. The botrytized grapes were 98° to 106° Oechsle up to now.

Conclusion: this year there is very little quantity with high quality. The percentage of botrytis is minimal, hence we will produce less sweet and instead more trocken and feinherb wines.

Matthias Knebel in his cellar in the village of Winningen. Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

At Weingut Reinhard & Beate Knebel the main harvest is winding down. The average must weights this past week were around 95° Oechsle. For example, their old-vine parcel in Sternberg, a former site within today’s Winninger Brückstück, had 104° Oechsle.

As an aside, according to Joachim Krieger’s Terrassenkultur an der Untermosel, the highly-esteemed and original Brückstück vineyard became part of Röttgen in 1912. In turn, the authorities re-named the neighboring “Im Geisen” with the name Brückstück. As if this were not confusing enough, in 1971, the newly-designated Brückstück (i.e., “Im Geisen”) also became part of Röttgen. So, today’s Brückstück is mainly the well-situated Sternberg, a reputable, old-named section of a steep hillside with terraces that adjoins the enlarged Röttgen’s. In other words, the authorites expanded Röttgen to the south, towards the village of Winningen, and this comprises both the original Brückstück and Im Geisen vineyards.

Getting back to the harvest, Matthias Knebel, who has taken over more of the winemaking at the domaine, had this to say about the vintage:

In order to clarify one thing first: we’re very pleased with the harvest. Even if yields are described everywhere as being very low, we should nevertheless be happy about the quality of the grapes. It was reported that rot was prevalent in many areas, and one has to say that there was no bad rot—neither sour rot nor acetification. The grapes possessed from the outset of the harvest marked aromatics. The musts all tasted remarkably fruity, and those from the partly drier parcels have herbal aromas. All in all, it looks like fruitier and, again, somewhat robuster wines than 2008. We’ll have to wait and see. We’ve done our job, now the [wild] yeasts are doing theirs!

Ulli Stein in his cellar in the village of Bullay. Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

This might look and feel like a repeat of the last post, but it’s not. Even the photo of Ulli Stein before his 30-hl barrel is different. Anyway, the weather here has been just fantastic over the last couple of weeks with plenty of sunshine and cool weather. The main Riesling harvest has been underway.

Ulli explained:

Until the beginning of this week (with the exception of Himmelreich), we were still in pre-selection mode and harvested very good quality, amongst others Blauschiefer with 85° Oechsle and 9.3 g/l acidity—ideal. In Himmelreich, we purposely picked Kabinett and thereby picked once again an elegant “light style” by a combination of two harvest dates (October 14 and 21) with 80° and 86° Oechsle and 9.8 and 9.0 g/l acidity, respectively. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we harvested in Hölle and Klosterkammer wonderful grapes with 98° and 100° Oechsle and 9.5 and 9.0 g/l acidity, respectively. With Pinot Noir, we were finished by Oct. 15, totally healthy and 102° Oechsle. At the moment I am paying close attention to the acidity and will plan the rest of the harvest according to that. In Calmont, we’re done, an elegant Qualitätswein with 88° and a Spätlese with 97° Oechsle, but only 8.2 g/l acidity. We’ll have to give the latter a little Palmberg for support. The grapes are unbelievable and still hanging in Palmberg after the pre-selection: golden-yellow, healthy with a little noble rot, physiologically ripe and with a still racy acidity of 9.0 to 9.5 g/l. In Himmelreich, half the grapes of a similar quality are still hanging for vin de paille. In this year, Palmberg shows, for example, in comparison to Calmont or [Neefer] Frauenberg its absolute singularity and superiority—the old vines dig deep and have from the water source above [the vineyard] no water stress. In Calmont and Frauenberg, it was once again too dry. All in all, it’s been a grandiose autumn, and I’ll proceed in the cellar accordingly.

Ulli Stein in his cellar. Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

After having beautiful autumn weather in September and early October, the last few days have been rainy here in Trier. Although today it warmed up some with no rain. The main Riesling harvest has yet to begin. Most grapes will be picked over the next several weeks, however.

At Weingut Stein, Ulli wrote:

As late as yesterday [Sunday] the weather was fantastic, and the grapes ripened accordingly. Last week we did a complete pre-selection [a first passage through certain single vineyards] of Riesling grape bunches in Hölle, Klosterkammer, and Himmelreich. (Everything that was not optimal was cut from the vines.) Must weights were between 82° and 85° Oechsle. The grapes taste really good and will go in our table wine or in Blauschiefer. On Saturday, we picked the first Pinot Noir in Himmelreich with a good physiological ripeness and 102° Oechsle. Unfortunately, it’s supposed to rain in the next three days, still not a disaster, but increased risks of rot. We have to keep—and that is already foreseeable—a watchful eye on the acidity. Until now the grape ripening is similar to 2007, but it can quickly go in the direction of 2006  [i.e., with high levels of botrytis]. We’re going to harvest Pinot Noir in the coming weeks and then in Himmelreich and Palmberg those physiologically ripe and crisp Riesling grapes that don’t have Oechsle levels too high for the racy and lean Kabinett trocken and feinherb. All in all, I’m still very pleased and also optimistic.

Please note the following MWM tasting events, if you happen to be in NYC:

On Saturday, October 10, from 4 to 7pm, my colleague, Dan Melia, will be pouring 10 of our selections at Chambers Street Wines.

On the following Thursday, October 15, from 5:30 to 7:30pm, Crush Wine & Spirits will be hosting a big 2008 German Vintage Tasting, which includes a line-up of 27 wines, including nine from our portfolio. Join Dan as he pours our selections alongside other top wines from Germany.

It’s now official. Our friend and colleague Gernot Kollmann, who will continue to be consultant-winemaker at Weingut Reinhard & Beate Knebel, is the new director and cellarmaster at Weingut Immich-Batterieberg, a well-known domaine in Enkirch famous for its Jugendstil label, stony Batterieberg vineyard, and long-lived wines—in particular, their dry-tasting Riesling. The new owners have upgraded the cellar and possess at the moment 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of top old-vine parcels, many ungrafted, in Enkircher Steffensberg, Zeppwingert, Batterieberg, and Ellergrub.

In the nineteenth century, the former owner, Georg-Heinrich Immich, detonated with dynamite a slate cliff to create the monopole Batterieberg (demolition hill). The label depicts a cannon blast with the name of this site, which lies within the larger Zeppwingert. Ellergrub is further upstream on the same stretch of steep, terraced hillsides between Enkirch and Starkenburg. These three sites have mainly blue and gray slate. The south-facing Steffensberg, with more red slate, is located in a side valley, behind the village of Enkirch. As with most vineyards on the Mosel pre-1971 German Wine Law, the old maps, including the Prussian tax map of 1897, listed more site specific place-names than today and ranked Steffensberg, Zeppwingert, and Ellergrub among the first-class sites of the Mosel. (The map didn’t make note of Batterieberg at the time.)

The area around Enkirch and Traben-Trarbach, the latter still displaying its former wealth and Jugendstil architecture as the world’s leading trade center for white wines back in the late nineteenth century, has seen a renaissance of late with the emergence of quality growers such as Martin Müllen, Konstantin Weiser (Weingut Weiser-Künstler), and Daniel Vollenweider. All are members of the Klitzekleine Ring (little bitty circle), a play on the more prestigious Mosel VDP’s Grosser Ring (Great Circle), which is famous for its annual wine auctions in Trier. In fact, the next one is this coming Friday, September 25.

The Klitzekleine Ring is a group of ten growers who get together to do tasting events in order to bring more attention to this part of the Mosel as well as to save precious old vines in forgotten vineyards that would otherwise be grubbed up. Their upcoming “Tafelrunde” tasting is on Saturday, September 26, in Traben-Trarbach.

Autumn is already here, and my last blog post was in June. Please excuse the long absence during the “Summer of Riesling,” I’ve been remiss traveling wine country, hanging out, and drinking Mosel Riesling. By the way, it’s more than just a summer refresher.