WineLovers Discussion Group

I republished an article by Ulli Stein on saving the great Mosel vineyards. Translated by Dan Meila, with assistance from David Schildknecht. A Call to Action

I hope a solution is found for some of those steep vineyards.

JC (NC) wrote:I hope a solution is found for some of those steep vineyards.

JC: After Ulli published his manifesto, some vineyards have been saved, including old-vine parcels in St. Aldegunder Himmelreich. But more needs to happen, especially in sections of the Mosel, like St. Aldegund, that are less well known. The Klitzekleine Ring in Traben-Trarbach has been instrumental, too, in saving old Riesling vines in steep slope vineyards.

Just two comments.
As a direct result of the issues described in the manifesto, this summer was the "Summer of Riesling" at least here on the east coast of the US. I went to two Riesling events in the DC area both of which were well attended and perhaps are the beginnings of a greater appreciation of the wonderful wines available.
At the wine shop where I work, customers are always asking for Riesling but from the US, not Germany. I always walk them over to our German wine section and encourage them to try "real" Riesling. Many come back impressed with the many ways this grape can be presented from dry to sweet but always with an acidic backbone that allows it to pair so well with food.
Let's hope we've turned the corner since this article was written in 2010.

Jon Peterson wrote:Just two comments.
As a direct result of the issues described in the manifesto, this summer was the "Summer of Riesling" at least here on the east coast of the US. I went to two Riesling events in the DC area both of which were well attended and perhaps are the beginnings of a greater appreciation of the wonderful wines available.
At the wine shop where I work, customers are always asking for Riesling but from the US, not Germany. I always walk them over to our German wine section and encourage them to try "real" Riesling. Many come back impressed with the many ways this grape can be presented from dry to sweet but always with an acidic backbone that allows it to pair so well with food.
Let's hope we've turned the corner since this article was written in 2010.

Thanks for your comments, Jon. Yes, Paul Grieco's Summer of Riesling has been a great boost for Riesling sales, especially German Riesling. Yet hand-selling the wines at the shop is so important, too.

Some 30+ years ago, I drove along the northern stretch of the Rhône valley and was depressed by the number of abandoned wine growing terraces. I guess that, if I did a similar journey today, most of those terraces would again be covered with vines, helped mostly by the world's thirst for good red wine.

I ardently desire a similar outcome for the Mosel valley and its tributaries and hope that the actions outlined in Ulli Stein's article can be effective.

The best way we wine-lovers can help is to buy more Mosel wine but, for me, the difficulty lies in the limited use I find for wines with marked RS, however delicious. I have rarely had a convincing dry from MSR and, IMO, these wines find their most food friendly balance at the level of traditional Kabinett and some feinherb cuvées. However I have often ranted about the proliferation of "Kabinett" which tastes like rich Spätlese or Auslese and therefore buy less and less without prior tasting.

Tim York wrote:Some 30+ years ago, I drove along the northern stretch of the Rhône valley and was depressed by the number of abandoned wine growing terraces. I guess that, if I did a similar journey today, most of those terraces would again be covered with vines, helped mostly by the world's thirst for good red wine.

I ardently desire a similar outcome for the Mosel valley and its tributaries and hope that the actions outlined in Ulli Stein's article can be effective.

The best way we wine-lovers can help is to buy more Mosel wine but, for me, the difficulty lies in the limited use I find for wines with marked RS, however delicious. I have rarely had a convincing dry from MSR and, IMO, these wines find their most food friendly balance at the level of traditional Kabinett and some feinherb cuvées. However I have often ranted about the proliferation of "Kabinett" which tastes like rich Spätlese or Auslese and therefore buy less and less without prior tasting.

Tim: You make a very good analogy with the Northern Rhône. The regions have a lot in common. I've written about this in the past. You're right: the best way to help the Mosel Valley is to buy its wines. I agree, too, that wines with "marked RS" are less useful for everyday drinking. I recently had a couple of long talks with Willi Schaefer and even he says that for home consumption he often reaches for his dry to off-dry Rieslings, including a 1980 Auslese trocken. Yesterday, I had the very good 2011 Ellergrub Kabinett from Weiser-Künstler. It, however, needs time in bottle, so that the sweetness recedes a little. Like most fruity-sweet Kabinetts, the wines have naturally higher ripeness levels (hence RS) than Kabis made in the 1970s or 1980s. Weiser-Künstler also makes a delicious light, dry Kabinett from Gaispfad. It's one of many top dry-tasting, low-alcohol Mosel wines.

No problem finding uses for unabashedly sweet Mosel Riesling here. I eat a lot of Indian and SE Asian food, so the wines work very well. With those types of food choices the dry wines often taste shrill/metallic.

Once again some very good points made here including the discussion on Kabinett and the level of sweetness.
We have another interesting tasting listed for this coming Saturday downtown but alas rather a lack of interest. Most tastings at DeVines are a sell-out but once gain Germany continues to be a poor draw with the wine-buying public for many reasons talked about here of late.

http://devinewines.ca/event.html?id=628

Bob Parsons Alberta wrote:Once again some very good points made here including the discussion on Kabinett and the level of sweetness.
We have another interesting tasting listed for this coming Saturday downtown but alas rather a lack of interest. Most tastings at DeVines are a sell-out but once gain Germany continues to be a poor draw with the wine-buying public for many reasons talked about here of late.

http://devinewines.ca/event.html?id=628

Bob: I hope to finish a piece about Kabinett soon. It's been a lot of work and research, including talks with various producers about this topic. Meanwhile, I'm finishing up an article on the great vineyards of Wintrich. Both of these will be for subscribers, but I'll eventually move the Kabi article in front of the paywall, as I did with a few other write-ups.

Jon Peterson wrote:As a direct result of the issues described in the manifesto, this summer was the "Summer of Riesling" at least here on the east coast of the US. I went to two Riesling events in the DC area both of which were well attended and perhaps are the beginnings of a greater appreciation of the wonderful wines available.

We had tremendous success with "Summer of Riesling" at our restaurant this summer. We poured dozens of German wines from trocken to beerenauslese, and even people who claimed to hate sweet wines couldn't deny how great some of these were with the perfect food pairing. I think the biggest thing is educating people and getting them to try really stellar German wines, rather than massed produced junk. I had more excitement from guests this summer being thrilled with these wines and begging to know how to find them than I have ever seen from any other variety we pour.

David M. Bueker wrote:No problem finding uses for unabashedly sweet Mosel Riesling here. I eat a lot of Indian and SE Asian food, so the wines work very well. With those types of food choices the dry wines often taste shrill/metallic.

Took the words right out of my mouth! Now I'm hungry for Indian food...

When I came home from working in Germany the first time, I introduced my parents to Piesporter wines. They in turn offered them to a family friend who had a prominent insurance business in Lincoln, NE. He asked the University Club (restaurant on the top of a tall building in downtown Lincoln) to put Piesporter Goldtropfchen on their wine list which they did, so indirectly I was responsible for putting Piesporter Goldtropfchen on the wine map in Cornhusker country.

Heck man, you could have considered the Mickelsberg!!

Bob Parsons Alberta wrote:Heck man, you could have considered the Mickelsberg!!

Bob - Piesporter Mickelsberg is a grosslage, and vastly inferior to the single site Goldtropfchen. It's things such as Piesporter Mickelsberg and Zeller Schwarze Katz (and don't even get me started on things like Black Tower) that damaged the worldwide reputation of German Riesling. That's a problem that is still being fixed in some circles.

David M. Bueker wrote:

Bob Parsons Alberta wrote:Heck man, you could have considered the Mickelsberg!!

Bob - Piesporter Mickelsberg is a grosslage, and vastly inferior to the single site Goldtropfchen.

I think Bob knows that, David . However, the similarity of grosslage and einzellage names is a worthy subject for ranting . We need specific knowledge to know which is which. I know the Mickelsberg thing but am not sure at Bernkastel, e,g, Badtsube?

The Badstube is also a grosslage, though much superior to the swill fest of the general grosslage crowd. There are a number of fine spots in that generic site. The Bernkasteler Lay is quite nice. Loosen sells a kabinett (mostly) from the Lay on a regular basis. Graben, Matheisbildchen & Bratenhöfchen are less familiar names I am sure, but there are good grapes to be had there.

There are many fine wines labeled just as Bernkasteler Badstube. J. J. Prum and Selbach-Oster spring to mind this instant. I'm a big fan. Badstube is the baby that would get thrown out with the bathwater if the obscenty that is the grosslage was eliminated.

Is that enough of a rant? (I've ranted on grosslagen in the past as well.)

David M. Bueker wrote:

Bob Parsons Alberta wrote:Heck man, you could have considered the Mickelsberg!!

Bob - Piesporter Mickelsberg is a grosslage, and vastly inferior to the single site Goldtropfchen. It's things such as Piesporter Mickelsberg and Zeller Schwarze Katz (and don't even get me started on things like Black Tower) that damaged the worldwide reputation of German Riesling. That's a problem that is still being fixed in some circles.

By the way, it's Michelsberg. Goldtröpfchen is an Einzellage (single vineyard) within this Grosslage (collective site). Moreover, Goldtröpfchen is quasi a collective site. It includes a number of former place names. Zeller Schwarze Katz goes back to 1863. In fact, it was a popular and quality brand in the 1920s. Although it makes for a more commercial wine nowadays, the vineyards in and around Zell are quite impressive.

David M. Bueker wrote:The Badstube is also a grosslage, though much superior to the swill fest of the general grosslage crowd. There are a number of fine spots in that generic site. The Bernkasteler Lay is quite nice. Loosen sells a kabinett (mostly) from the Lay on a regular basis. Graben, Matheisbildchen & Bratenhöfchen are less familiar names I am sure, but there are good grapes to be had there.

There are many fine wines labeled just as Bernkasteler Badstube. J. J. Prum and Selbach-Oster spring to mind this instant. I'm a big fan. Badstube is the baby that would get thrown out with the bathwater if the obscenty that is the grosslage was eliminated.

Is that enough of a rant? (I've ranted on grosslagen in the past as well.)

David gives a great example. Badstube is a relatively small Grosslage from slate vineyards in Bernkastel. It includes Doctor, as well. Selbach-Oster prefers to label the wine Badstube rather than from one of the smaller sites on the slope north of Bernkastel.

Yeah, sorry about the spelling.

Don't even get me started on the expansion of historic sites that happened due to the 1971 wine law.

Actually, it WAS the Piesporter Michelsberg that I drank at the local Gasthaus but back in the USA the market was importing Piesporter Goldtropfchen so our tastes were elevated.

JC (NC) wrote:Actually, it WAS the Piesporter Michelsberg that I drank at the local Gasthaus but back in the USA the market was importing Piesporter Goldtropfchen so our tastes were elevated.

The reason I mentioned the Michelsberg was in relation to the thread about which wines you remember from your youth!!

JC (NC) wrote:When I came home from working in Germany the first time, I introduced my parents to Piesporter wines. They in turn offered them to a family friend who had a prominent insurance business in Lincoln, NE. He asked the University Club (restaurant on the top of a tall building in downtown Lincoln) to put Piesporter Goldtropfchen on their wine list which they did, so indirectly I was responsible for putting Piesporter Goldtropfchen on the wine map in Cornhusker country.

A year ago, Jean Fisch and David Rayer of Moselfinewines.com came out with a Mosel vineyard classification, based on their vast collective experience drinking Mosel Riesling. One of the vineyards that they rated as a ""Premier Cru", alongside the likes of Lieser Niederberg-Helden and Leiwener Laurentiuslay (both Grosses Gewächs/Lagen per the VDP) was a forgotten site in the Saar named Pellinger Jesuitengarten. In fact, Pellinger Jesuitengarten had its vines ripped out. Fisch and Rayer rated it highly based on the quality of the wines that the sole owner, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium, made there between the 1950s and the 1970s.

With Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium not what it once was as an important Mosel producer, it would be great if they could find someone with passion of Ulli Stein to purchase, replant and resurrect this once-great vineyard. At least I can hope. For that matter, I'm a bit surprised that someone with the financial resources of Roman Niewodniczanski hasn't already bought the land.