Mosel-Saar-Ruwer

Rock stars show off in Germany

by Bill Zacharkiw

It was a late-September morning, overcast and cool as is often the case in this corner of Germany. I was biking along a path that followed the Mosel River, and to my left was one of Germany's most famous vineyard sites, a dizzyingly steep slope called Sonnenuhr.

I got off my bike and hiked up amongst the vines. The ground was tinted blue, a result of the almost non-existent topsoil and, underneath, the brittle blue slate that is found throughout this network of valleys. I sat down, got back my breath and looked down along the row of vines on the slope I had just hiked. "You need to be half-mountain goat to harvest here," I thought.

The Mosel River Valley, along with the valleys of its tributaries, the Saar and Ruwer, is not the most beautiful region I have ever visited, nor does it have the most elaborate cuisine, though for sausage fans it is paradise. My love for this place is all about the wine. It is where my favourite grape, riesling, achieves its greatest expression. The style, an intense minerality with a knifelike tension between its bracing acidity and residual sugar, is as much an archetype as the chardonnay of Chablis. The wines, like the terrain, are challenging and austere. Its history is about a singular pursuit of a single grape varietal, and that's what separates the Mosel from almost every other wine region in the world.

Grape growing in the Mosel dates back almost 2,000 years, as the Romans were the first to figure out that there was something special in this rough terroir. By the 17th century, riesling became the tour de force of the region and, during the 19th century, German riesling was considered one of the world's greatest wines. Today, it still dominates and, while you will find small patches of müller-thurgau, pinot blanc and pinot noir, riesling represents close to 60 per cent of all plantings.

The climate of the Mosel is cool, in part because of altitude, but what makes the Mosel so unique is its latitude. This is one of the northernmost places that you will find grape growing. It lies on the 50˚ N Parallel, where you'll also find both Regina and Moose Jaw - hardly hotbeds for grape growing. The Gulf Stream keeps most of Germany relatively warm during the summer and fall, and produces mild winters. This translates into long, sunlit days and, combined with the cooler temperatures, means a very slow ripening period which is how the grapes maintain their signature acidity.