Although no one ever noticed, I realized on my own that I had mistakenly captioned this photo from Tobias on page 27 of our Catalog 2009 as Bremmer Calmont. It’s actually Stein’s revered St. Aldegunder Palmberg-Terrassen.

Stairs up one of the many old drywall terraces at Palmberg that need constant upkeep, as in other Lower Mosel vineyards, such as Winninger Röttgen, where the Knebels have some of their best parcels. Yet, much of the Lower Mosel (also known as the Terrassenmosel) have terraced sites, like the Mittelrhein nearby. Sadly, many vineyards in both regions are being left abandoned and bramble grows there instead of vines.

On the Saar, the Lauers saved an old-vine, terraced plot at Schonfels, which slopes precipitously above a high cliff and down towards the river.

Before Flurbereingung (remodeling of vineyards), the Middle Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer had more terraced hillsides than today. Fortunately, several of our winegrowers, including Clemens Busch and Stefan Steinmetz (Weingut Günther Steinmetz), have been instrumental in saving old Riesling vines or re-cultivating steep slate slopes in their respective communes.

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 winegrowers 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 winegrowers 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 slate 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.

Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

A trail winds mid slope in the steep Palmberg-Terrassen behind the village of St. Aldegund. The old ungrafted vines are trained in the traditional manner on wooden stakes. The 2008 St. Aldegunder Palmberg-Terrassen Riesling Spätlese trocken is still fermenting in two old barrels. Meanwhile, you can taste Stein’s 2007 feinherb edition.

Photograph by Tobias Hannemann.

Ulli Stein standing at his beloved St. Aldegunder Palmberg-Terrassen. The name of this steep-terraced site with gray and blue slate comes from the boxwood plant that is prevalent in the Mediterranean, but also grows on this hill. “Palm” is patois for Buchsbaum (boxwood), not palm tree. See Joe Salamone’s write-up on Ulli and his favorite site.

Ulli Stein and his pickers ended the harvest under azure skies on Tuesday, November 4. They picked the grapes for his Strohwein, which were already shriveling, and fully ripe ones at 96° Oechsle in his Palmberg-Terrassen vineyard in St. Aldegund. The latter will be for a dry Spätlese this vintage. The musts are fermenting quietly and efficiently in the cellar.

For the 2008 vintage, Ulli plans to make a liter bottle of dry Riesling called “Der Traubenflüsterer” (grape whisperer). This is his entry-level wine for simple, everyday drinking. Then, he’ll have two different Riesling called Blauschiefer (blue slate), one is fermented off-dry, the other dry . The latter was last year a special selection made for Polaner Selections. Doug Polaner, who tasted barrel samples of each in Paris with us, selected the drier version for import. It reminds me and others of La Pepière Muscadet for its charming crisp, low-alcohol (10.5%) style. This wine comes from diverse, steep sites with predominantly blue slate. Over half is from the higher terraces of the aforementioned Palmberg-Terrassen. Another key contributor is a site called Himmelreich also in St. Aldegund. It’s an old-vine, easterly sloping vineyard at the foot of the hillside with blue slate in a relatively warm micro-climate due to its proximity to one of the Mosel’s dams. The other top sites blended into Blauschiefer trocken include Calmont in the village of Bremm (the steepest vineyard in Europe) and Frauenberg in Neef.

Ulli is also planning to make a dry-fermented Kabinett at under 10% alcohol. The grapes were picked just at physiological ripeness. He wants this to be akin to a great Vinho Verde.

Along with his dry Riesling called Domwein from the Vogteiberg site in Senheim, Ulli will also have a two-star dry Riesling from the Hölle vineyard in Alf (below his home) and from Calmont. He felt the latter didn’t justify the designation Spätlese trocken this year. Nonetheless, neither wine will be chaptalized.

For me, all these wines represent a traditional and overlooked style of the Mosel; that is natural dry-fermented, light-bodied Riesling raised mostly in old barrels on their fine lees with late and low sulphur additions, no additives, and minimal handling. Moreover, they retain the brisk, mineral character that makes the Mosel unique. Some dismiss this style as simple or lacking balance or pedigree as if the Mosel should have high residual sugar and, if dry, then ripe and full bodied. In my opinion, few producers have mastered, much less attempted to make this dry style with marked acidity. Others that come to mind include two famous names in the Ruwer Valley: Maximin Grünhaus (von Schubert), sadly few of his dry Riesling reach the States, and in a more reductive style, I also think of Karthäuserhof (Tyrell).