An old Mosel barrel, around 90 years old, in the sixteenth-century cellar of Weingut Günther Steinmetz in Brauneberg.

The Fuder (also known as Fuderfaß) is the typical Mosel barrel, about 1,000 liters, used for fermenting or maturing wine or both. The oak traditionally comes from the local forests in the neighboring hills of the Eifel or Hunsrück. Each barrel (Faß) was precisely measured with the exact liters branded on one end.

Besides the traditional Fuder, cellars often were stocked with Halbfuder (“half-ton,” holding circa 500 liters) or Doppelfuder (“double-ton”) and even smaller barrels in addition to much larger ones, such as 35-hectoliter tons, which were mainly used for storing wine. The oak Fuder allows for some oxygenation and is an ideal vessel for fermenting Riesling, especially in a deep, cool, vaulted Mosel cellar. One Fuder is around 1,300 bottles. Today more and more producers, especially with modern installations, have gone to stainless-steel tanks, for they are easier to clean, maintain, and control temperature. Among the producers in our portfolio, Stein, Clemens Busch, Günther Steinmetz, and Peter Lauer still use Fuderfässer along with tanks. Other notable advocates of Fuder, whom we admire, include Hofgut Falkenstein, Ansgar Clüsserath, and Weiser-Künstler.

Before the advent of pumps, tradesmen, known as Schröter, specialized in moving the heavy (back then) hand-split oak barrels in and out of cellars—an arduous task. Barrels and, in some instances, cases of wine were sold and transported by horse- or ox-drawn carts as well as by ship or train. In the 1920s or ’30s domaine-bottling was less common than today.

Local coopers (Küfer) on the Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer have practically become obsolete, despite a movement back to Fuder among some quality-conscious producers. Carl von Schubert at Maximin Grünhaus, for example, recently had some new Fuderfässer (neatly painted with green trim) made from his own Grünhaus forest by an old cooper based in the nearby Ruwer village of Kasel. His Pinot Blanc goes in the new Fuder the first few vintages to leech out the wood flavors. Otherwise, finding good used barrels has become difficult. They need to be properly checked so as not to impart musty off-smells or -flavors in the wine. And some producers’ barrels have a taint from the use of sorbic acid, once popular in killing yeasts, which gives off a flowery odor, often described as geraniums, and should never be used in making wine.

Another Fuder in the cellar of Weingut Günther Steinmetz.

Certain Mosel producers prefer—even for their Rieslings—smaller secondhand (rarely new) wooden barrels, such as 550- to 600-liter demi-muids or 228-liter Burgundian pièces, because they are easier to handle and better for smaller volumes.

On the Rhine the standard 1,200-liter oval barrels are called Stück, which also come in the approximately 600-liter Halbstück or 2,400-liter Doppelstück. Two of the best-known coopers in Europe are Hösch, a small cooperage in the Nahe specializing in handmade barrels, and the Austrian company Stockinger. At Weingut Dr. Siemens on the Saar, for instance, they have from each cooperative both Stück and Doppelstück.

Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

A Fuder of 2008 Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Spätlese* ferments in the cellar at Weingut Günther Steinmetz. Stefan Steinmetz is making some of the best wines on the Middle Mosel. His 2007 Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Spätlese* is stunning.

Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

A Fuder of 2008 St. Aldegunder Himmelreich Riesling Kabinett trocken at Weingut Stein. This wine comes from non-grafted old vines in the original plot of Himmelreich in St. Aldegund and ferments spontaneously on its lees.

The cellar at Weingut Günther Steinmetz. Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

A 17-year-old Günther Steinmetz made his first vintage in 1958, having taken over from his deceased father. He was one of the few winegrowers to domaine-bottle his wines in the village of Brauneberg in the 1950s. This was before the advent of cultured yeasts, laboratory analysis, and sterile filters (the latter not readily available to most winegrowers at the time and paramount for making the sweet, so-called “classic style” many Mosel Riesling fans love).

His 1958 Brauneberger Hasenläufer Riesling naturrein was fermented and matured naturally dry in Fuder, the traditional 1,000-liter barrels of the Mosel. Back in those days many of the old-vaulted cellars had chimneys to keep temperatures from dipping too low. The wild yeasts didn’t start or keep going if it were too cold. The fear among producers was re-fermentation in bottle, hence wines were usually fermented dry. Bottling occurred around May, and the wines tended to be circa 10-11% in alcohol. Today, Günther’s son, Stefan, bottles from this same plot of vines under the designation Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Devon. (Devon is named after the type of slate soils found along the Mosel from the Devonian Period.)

The German term naturrein meant the wine was non-chaptalized, or not “improved” by adding sugar to increase the alcohol and lower the acidity; Spätlese (late harvest) had little to do with today’s style, merely the time of harvesting. Hasenläufer (Hare Runner) was an old place-name, at the foot of the Brauneberger hillside, below the monopole Kammer higher up. As with many hillside vineyards, it lies on the other side of the Mosel from the village it’s named after. (On old maps Brauneberg was formerly called Dusemond.)

The 1971 German Wine Law rationalized many of these former place-names by grouping them together into legally defined single vineyards. For example, what is today Brauneberger Juffer consisted of several different sites, such as Hasenläufer and Falkenberg among others. Except for Kammer and Juffer-Sonnenuhr, the names have all but disappeared and became part of the enlarged Juffer, which itself was once only a particular site on the famed Braueberger hillside. The same occurred throughout the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer. A couple of our winegrowers, such as Clemens Busch or Florian Lauer, still use (illegally) some original pre-1971 site names to differentiate among wines and their specific nuances.