Vinoculation

Impressions, issues, things you might not know

Production, demand and Vintages

The 09 Vintage is a winner. For me probably the best all round vintage since 01. Some will prefer the classical 04 and 08’s, others will like the richer years like 06, then 07 and 05 (and even 03), however 09 offers something for everyone. I saw good wines at every level from QbA to top dessert wines. Buy the 08’s and leave them in the cellar, then load up on 09 and drink them gradually over a long period.

What Comes to Australia from Mosel and Nahe is the cream of the crop. There must be oceans of 3 Euro wine being sold somewhere – we don’t get these wines in Aus.

Huge chunks of German wine sold in Germany is trocken. For some producers, this is their domestic income, where their export income is usually from the fruitier wines. However some are seeing their export markets changing too, with more demand for drier wines.

The area

The Mosel itself was a little different to my expectations. Yes there are lots of silly-steep vineyards. But there are an awful lot of grapes planted, over a very long length of the river, and not all on the steep, sun gathering slopes. The 30km stretch that runs from Trittenheim to Erden is pretty much the centre of the universe and where most of the well known wines come from. But there are about 300km of this river, and there are vines pretty much from the French border right to Koblenz where it flows into the Rhine.

The Middle Mosel is fairly touristy – some big caravan parks in a couple of places. Cycle tourism seems well established, and it’s a great place to be riding a bike! A group we talked to said there were cycle paths pretty much the whole length of the river, and villages every few km to stop.

Viticulture and Winemaking

I didn’t get the impression however that the Mosel is a natural home for the drier wines. Nahe was certainly more impressive in this area.

Permitted yields in the Mosel are up to 120hl/ha. The good producers go nowhere near this, 50 to 60hl/ha seems more typical from what we learned, for riesling anyway. No one wants to go too low, the increase in richness and intensity is not seen as necessarily a good thing for Riesling (although we didn’t pursue this with anyone).

“Natural Ferments’ – meaning wild yeast ferments, are very much in vogue. The only exceptions from the producers we visited were for lower end wines where anything other than clean flavours was seen as a risk. On the pradikat wines we never saw anything overtly funky, feral or problematic, the effect appeared to be subtle – with the possible exception of the Frohlich GG.

A couple of times we heard concerns about climate change and what that will mean for the area and for business. There are some clever things that can be done in the vineyard, and in Schmitges case, some long term thinking has influenced site selection toward cooler sites.

Visiting

Some wineries are set up with “open to the public” cellar door style facilities, but not too many as far as we could tell. All of our tastings were by appointment. JJ Prum and Willi Schaefer had no dedicated tasting facilities. All of the places we tasted had the family home, winery, and any reception facilities closely integrated.

It is easy to get around, and a GPS with German maps should do the job, unless you’re prepared to brave things with paper maps.

All of the tastings were tutored and structured to varying degrees. We never took less than 1 ½ hours at any location.

We didn’t get enough exposure to the Nahe to form many strong impressions. The Nahe is not a place you will find or visit by accident, and seems very sleepy.

Favourite wines (of the various styles) – all 09’s unless noted

Estate: Donnhoff QbA

Trocken: Donnhoff, Schaefer Frohlich and the Fritz Haag Spatlese Fienherb

GG: Donnhoff Niederhauser Hermannsholle, Schaefer Frohlich Bockenauer Felsneck

Kabinett: 08 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Schaefer Frohlich (don’t remember which one).

Spatlese: 08 JJ Prum Graacher Himmelrich, Lieser Niederberger Helden,  Fritz Haag BJS

Auslese: Schaefer Frohlich Bockenauer Felsneck

Dessert: Schmitges Eiswien; Lieser Niederberger Helden  Langhe Goldkapsel

Red: Schmitges Dornfelder (in a very small field!)

Honorable mention to the Schmitges Auction Auslese – a love it or hate it style.

Things to watch for.

Schaefer Frohlich. I still remember walking out of the reception room with my jaw on my chest at how good these wines were across the range. He doesn’t seem to have the Donnhoff reputation yet, but he will one day. Soon.

Andreas Schmitges. Doesn’t have the raw material of the other makers, but his passion and willingness to try new things speaks to me – this man will make exceptional wines. The 09 Eiswein is from a vineyard called Erdener Herrenberg – No I’d never heard of that vineyard either. Its at the top of the slope, eisweins are traditionally made from grapes down by the river.

And that’s all – until next time…