I found it difficult to get a tasting appointment booked as most of the producers are smaller and were not available with harvest just finishing. I was able to get Selbach-Oster booked via email and JJ Prum referred me over to Rieslinghaus for a Prum tasting.
A view from above Bernkastel.
I got hosted by Thomas at Weingut Selbach-Oster on Monday in Zeltingen-Rachitg. I have to admit, I know absolutely nothing about riesling but since I was in Germany working I was going to take the afternoon to sit down, ask questions, listen and taste. I was blown away by the amount of time, information and number of bottles they opened for me. I counted 10 bottles on the table after I was done with this tasting. As we migrated our way from dry up to sweet, I found that I preferred the sweeter wines to the dry although that is not to say the dry wines were not good. I enjoyed everything they poured and will surely be seeking out more of their wine. I will take a wild guess that I paid a lot less for their wine in person than I would here in the US with import costs, triple tier markups and taxes.
Thomas shared that due to global warming their harvests are moving a couple weeks to the left in the calendar and to not expect much Eiswein since it isn’t cold enough by the time they have to harvest grapes now.
He mentioned that there is at least 1 death a year farming the slopes of the vineyards of the Mosel. The hillsides are extremely steep and tough to farm. They get a lot of migrant labor from eastern European countries during harvest.
The bridge and Mosel in front of the vinothek.
We started at the bottom of the riesling pyramid and worked our way up.
Base house Trocken, several bottles from different vineyards, then to halbtrocken.
Here is a map of the right bank of the Mosel
Then we graduated to GG (grand cru)
and some “very old vines”
then to the * and ** bottles which apparently are the goldkapsel equivalents and I did not take pictures of.
Worked our way through the sweet rieslings
and then got to sample the beerenauslese and the trockenbeerenauslese. As Thomas said, “The angels piss this juice.” If my memory is correct, they made 17 liters or around 120-130 375ml bottles of the trockenbeerenauslese this year. The TBA was phenomenal.
After I bought a few bottles of the trockenbeerenauslese, beerenauslese and a GG, I headed back to Berkastel-Keus for a JJ Prum tasting at Rieslinghaus.
Graacher Himmelreich in block letters on the steep hillside.
Prum Lineup, 2020 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinnet, 18 Graacher Himmelreich Spatlese, 18 WinePorn (private label for Rieslinghaus), 15 Graacher Himmelreich Auslese and 05 Graacher Himmelreich Auslese.
I finished with a bonus tasting of the 03 Graacher Himmelreich Auslese Goldkapsel.
I ended up taking home a bottle of the 18 WinePorn and an 03 Bernkasteler Badstube Auslese.
The shop had a nice selection of riesling with some Egon Muller (I forget the price spread on these but they were in the hundreds) and a tiny bit of Keller (close to $300 euros). They also had quite a few magnums available.
Great experience to drink riesling on a short business trip to Germany.
