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Middle Mosel Part 1

German Wine Guide:

Introduction
Laws & Classifications
Prädikat & AP Number
German Wine Dictionary
The Saar
The Ruwer
The Middle Mosel Part 1
The Middle Mosel Part 2
The Nahe
The Rheingau
Rheinhessen
The Pfalz

There are fine vineyards along the Saar and the Ruwer, but if we are to look for the greatest sites in this vicinity, and indeed perhaps in all Germany, it is to the steep slopes of the Mosel that we should look. Here a majestic river, rather than the trickling streams that are its tributaries, carves a sweep of vineyards from the slatey rocks. The water, the slate, the precipitous slopes; all contribute to the superlative wines that spring forth from these vineyards.

The Mosel flows for 150 miles, although thanks to its meandering course it covers barely 70 miles, as the crow flies, in doing so. With each twist and turn it fashions new, vertiginous slopes from the rocky riverside. This steep slope is one element of the Mosel success story, the vines perfectly positioned running up the incline to catch every ray of warmth from the sun. There are vines of both sides of the river, but the greatest sites congregate on the left bank, the slopes having the southerly aspect that improves their exposure to the sun. They are also warmed by the slate soils, which take up the warmth of the sun quickly during the day, radiating the heat out to the vines once the sun has set. That is not to say the grapes here are baked as they hang on the vine; quite the opposite, in fact. The combination of warm days and long, cool nights brings the fruit to a fresh and yet gentle ripeness, full of the vivacity of the grapes as they were when they hung on the vines, a character that must be preserved as they metamorphose into wine for a great Riesling to be born.

As well as the slate, the river itself has a strong moderating influence on the vines, more so than the Saar and the Ruwer. This is a huge body of water, many times large than either of those tributaries, and it protects the vines from extremes of temperature such as frost. And the river has one other effect on the vines, sometimes overlooked but of doubtless importance, and that is the encouragement of morning mists that abut the steep slopes either side, and that run up and down the adjacent tributaries and their valleys. Such morning mists promote the development of botrytis, sometimes a very strong feature of the greatest wines of the Mosel.

The Top Vineyards

Top Winedoctor Estates

Fritz Haag
Reinhold Haart
Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt
Grans-Fassian
Max Ferd. Richter

Like the Saar, the Mosel itself arises in the Vosges mountains in Alsace, the river flowing for many miles before even a single vineyard graces the waterway with its presence. It is at the town of Trittenheim that the first vineyards of note begin to appear, in particular the Trittenheimer Apotheke vineyard, where a number of growers such as Grans-Fassian make Rieslings which, although perhaps not top flight, can be consistently good. To experience the pinnacle of what this portion of the Mosel has to offer, however, there are two particular sites which must not be overlooked. The first great site is the Piesporter Goldtröpfchen vineyard and its small enclave, the Domherr vineyard. The name of the former poetically translates as to 'little drops of gold', which surely can only be referring to the the precious juice of the sweet, ripe golden grapes. The name Piesporter may, however, raise a snigger at the back, simply because today it has become synonymous with the sugary sweet grape juice Piesporter Michelsberg, a Grosslage wine that bears no resemblance to the beautiful wines that spring forth from great sites such as Goldtröpfchen and Domherr. Those with a true knowledge of Piesport, however, look beyond such poorly directed prejudices and take advantage of the great wines, from Reinhold Haart in particular, that are found here. Other producers of note include Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt.

After Piesport the Mosel turns south and then turns tightly north once more, before flowing more smoothly past the vineyards of Brauneberg, the brown mountain (the soil's colour tinted by their iron content) after which the town is named and which is home to its vines, lying on the left bank of the river. Here lies the other great site of this upper stretch of the Mosel, the Brauneberger Juffer (juffer being a derivation of jungfrau, referring to a young maiden, although juffer also translates fairly directly into 'old maid' or 'spinster') and the encapsulated Juffer Sonnenuhr (sonnenuhr refers to the sundial which sits at the centre of the vines) vineyards, and a clue to the quality of the wines is suggested by the old name for the hill, Dusemond, from dulcis mons or 'sweet mountain'. These are superlative, steep, south-facing sites of slate, extolled almost exclusively by the Fritz Haag estate, although once again the almost omnipresent Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt owns vines here, as well as the Max Ferd. Richter estate. But it is Fritz Haag that leads, without a doubt; the Haag bottles are fabulous wines, fit to challenge any produced along the banks of the Mosel, in fact from any German vineyard, Mosel or otherwise, including those famous names which are yet to come in our journey down the Mosel, which we complete in Part 2.

Next instalment: The Middle Mosel Part 2