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Middle Mosel Part 2

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

With this instalment of my German Wine Guide we reach a crescendo, and also a point of closure. This portion of the Middle Mosel, from Brauneberg down to Enkirch and on after that, is home to the Mosel's greatest vineyards, largely concentrated around the first few bends of the river as it passes Brauneberg (already covered in Part 1) and the famous wine towns of Bernkastel-Kues, Graach an der Mosel, Wehlen, Zeltingen, Ürzig and Erden. Is there any drinker of German wine who is not familiar with some, if not all, of these names?

This crescendo then fades to a distant rumble as the river flows onwards, past less familiar names, until we eventually reach the Mosel's end. This then is our point of closure; the Middle Mosel is the last bastion for vineyards of interest on this particular body of water. The Lower Mosel, which flows on past Zell, Cochem and Kobern (all beyond the borders of the map below) until it reaches the Rhine at Koblenz, is still characterised by riverside vineyards full of Riesling, vineyards that are contiguous with those of the Mittelrhein region. But neither region gives the quality that can be found further upstream, along the Middle Mosel, Saar and Ruwer for the former, or the Rheingau, Rheinhessen, Pfalz and the Nahe for the latter.

Much of what makes this region special has already been explained. A huge body of water to moderate the temperature and to reflect light and heat, similarly the heat-retaining slate vineyards, the steep angle at which they present their vines to the sun, and the fractionally warmer climate all contribute to the quality of the harvested fruit. But there is so much more of it all; here lies the longest uninterrupted stretch of high quality vineyards anywhere in Europe, running downriver from Bernkastel for a breathtaking five miles, a sloping sea of vines mirroring the adjacent river. There is no comparable sight in the world.

The Top Vineyards

Top Winedoctor Estates

Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt
Thansich-Erben
Kees-Kieren
Joh. Jos. Prüm
Dr Loosen
Joh. Jos. Christoffel-Erben
Heymann-Löwenstein
Willi Schaefer
Markus Molitor

We must give a quick nod to Juffer Sonnenuhr and Juffer vineyards, to remind ourselves that we have made an arbitrary and perhaps questionable division between the 'upper' and 'lower' sections of the Middle Mosel. But moving on, the land hereafter is a little hilly, but does not possess the great walls of slate that host the great vineyards. These edifices make their first appearance behind the town of Bernkastel-Kues, home to one of Germany's most famous and perhaps infamous vineyards, Bernkasteler Doctor.

It would be quite easy to pen a whole essay on the Doctor vineyard, so named because the wine, on the recommendation of a local physician, was administered (with a positive result it seems) to Archbishop Boemund II when on his deathbed. The vineyard was one of hundreds of casualties of the 1971 German Wine Law, when its boundaries were indiscriminately extended to take in several hectares of vines, of lesser quality, either side of the original site. The owners of the original vineyard understandably objected, and the matter was not settled in court until 1984. The vineyard boundary remained extended to the west, encompassing what was once part of the adjacent Graben vineyard, but to the east the land was considered unworthy of the Doctor, and these unfortunate winemakers lost their right to put Germany's most famous name on the label. By way of appeasement, this land was renamed Alte Badstube am Doctorberg. Of the three names associated with the original Doctor vineyard, Dr Thanisch has the best reputation, thanks to many great wines produced in the early 20th Century. The estate has since been subdivided, and there are now two estates, Thanisch-Erben and Thanisch Müller-Burggraef; it is the former that has the better reputation today, although the wines do not evoke great emotions in the way that those from the turn of the previous century may have done, or indeed in the way that other nearby estates still do today.

Before moving on we should also look at one other Bernkastel vineyard, Lay. This vineyard, which is just downriver from the Doctor, slopes quite gently up away from the river (compared to some of the vertiginous slopes further downstream) and has deep soils of Devonian slate. Indeed, lay translates directly into 'slate', which dominates the rocks and soils along the Mosel, varying in colour as we move along according to the precise mineral content; here it has a blue-grey hue. At last leaving Bernkastel, we travel onwards downriver, first to Graach an der Mosel, home to several very good vineyard sites, including Himmelreich and Domprobst, two steep vineyards of variegated but predominantly blue slate and shallow loam extolled by Kees-Kieren and Dr Loosen, among others, as well as Josephshöfer, an einzellage owned in its entirety by Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt. This vineyard, 4.8 hectares of Devonian slate interspersed with a fine earth, and with a gradient of 70%, was once under the ownership of St Martins Abbey in Trier. This changed with the Napoleonic secularisation of church property in the early 19th Century, and came to von Kesselstatt in 1858. The wines are rich, peachy and of very good quality; none of these, however, quite reach the dizzy heights of excellence that can be found in subsequent vineyards along this bank of the river, starting with the Sonnenuhr vineyard, opposite Wehlen but also running down into the parish of Zeltingen (so both Wehlener and Zeltinger bottlings may be found). This vineyard, like Juffer Sonnenuhr, is named for its sundial which is positioned partway up the slope; its existence is boastful of the vineyards sun-drenched position, and gives a clue as to the potential quality of the wines. The Wehlener example is another precipitously steep site, this time of beautifully pure blue-grey slate, crags of which jut out between the vines. There is almost no cushion of topsoil for the vines, which bury their roots into the unforgiving shards of slate that litter the surface. This is indeed a vineyard of great quality, the wines standing out with their purity and grace combined with force, and there are a number of leading producers here to make the most of what the soil has to offer, including Joh. Jos. Prüm, Dr Loosen, Selbach-Oster and Willi Schaefer.

Weingut Mönchhof Erdener Prälat label Past Zeltingen and on to Ürzig, the dominance of slate is threatened for a short stretch, as here the erosion caused by the bend in the river has exposed a bank of iron-rich red volcanic and slate soils that are said to give a unique spiciness to the wines of the Würzgarten (which translates as 'spice garden') vineyard. Like Wehlener Sonnenuhr this is unquestionably another first growth site, and winemakers fortunate enough to own vines here can turn out wines of superfluous quality. Again we have Dr Loosen, but also Joh. Jos. Christoffel-Erben, now run by Robert Eymael, a source of truly brilliant wines, bursting with tropical fruit and that unique, peppery spice. And more brilliance can be found from Erden’s two great vineyard sites, Prälat and Treppchen, the first of which adjoins the Würzgarten. The name prälat gives a clue as to this site’s history, as it translates to 'prelate' or 'bishop', as illustrated on the labels of many of the vineyard's finest examples, such as the Riesling Auslese from Robert Eymael (above). The complex soils still have a red hue like that of the adjacent Würzgarten, but there is slate mixed in too, and halfway up the vineyard there emerges from the soil a wall of red, craggy, heat-retaining cliffs; it is an impressive sight to behold. The soils in the tiny jewel known as Treppchen are similar. This charming site is named for the treppchen or ‘little staircase’ that is carved into the steep red slate that is underfoot here, and the leading proponents here are names that should not be new to us; watch out for Dr Loosen and Joh. Jos. Christoffel-Erben again.

Thank heavens, after Erden we may take a breather. Having cantered through the greatest concentration of top vineyards in Germany, once past the little staircase there are fewer sites that excite, although there are still many good wines made downriver from here, and in the lower Mosel. One producer worth mentioning is Heymann-Löwenstein, who tends vines around the town of Winningen (beyond the borders of my map, much closer to Koblenz in the lower Mosel), in the Röttgen and Uhlen vineyards. The style is a drier one compared to what one finds further upstream, but the quality is extremely good. Otherwise, the next step in our exploration of German wine takes us to the vineyards of the Rhine.

Next instalment: The Nahe