German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

mosel-saar-ruwer
The green bottles. The wines we love with a special tenderness, for the essence of spring-time
which pours out with each piercing greeny splash. There are as many ways to love them as there
are people who love them. But for me, as a merchant, there is only one way to buy them.
I look for slate. I want to taste that soil, for it’s slate that gives the Mosel its signature, its somewhere-ness.
There are other light and aromatic wines in the world from northern climates: the
U.K., Luxembourg, even the Ahr, which is further north than the Mosel. But no other wine
expresses this curious permutation of mineral and Riesling. Mosel wines can be rich, but flabbiness
is simply out of character; softness has no place here. I want that malic, granny-apple fruitiness
that manages to be so taut and exuberant, set in a binding of minerality you should detect
with the first whiff. Mosel wine should never lounge around like a contented feline. It should
run like a gazelle, taut and rippling and sinewy.
The valley itself is spectacular but unforgiving; the very steepness of the vine-clad slopes suggest
the precariousness of a vintner’s existence. The wines
themselves, beneath their extroverted gaiety, have something
quite rigid, unsentimental, as though of a floweressence
distilled to a point of almost unbearable clarity.
It is so easy to be charmed into euphoria by these wines
that I forget how intricate and inscrutable they can be.
Even the most rustic and uncomplicated vintners are
Catholically devout servants of this particular mystery
of nature.
Recent vintages have shown the Mosel off, and its
renown has increased markedly. But leave the bestknown
sites and drive just a few miles and there are seismic
shudders of a dubious future. However searching the
wines may be, the work of producing them is sweaty and
brusque. You know, until you actually see these vineyards,
you cannot imagine—even the best pictures cannot convey
—just how steep this ground is. Our forbears were
stoically accustomed to a certain physical travail as a condition
of being. But not us. Sometimes you will look up at
little specks of people, pruning, binding, spraying, and
you will wonder: “how do they keep from falling?” But
I look for slate. I want to taste that
soil, for it’s slate that gives the Mosel
its signature, its somewhere-ness.
even more you will wonder: “who in his right mind would
do such work?” Who indeed! People who are willing to
work the steep slopes are growing rarer—and older. Much
casual vineyard labor in Germany comes from Poland
these days, but the steep slopes need experienced hands.
Families undertake most of the work themselves, if they
will. Many of the young are opting out. Many venerable
names are either up for sale, have already been sold, or are
floundering. Vineyard land is available everywhere, giving
an anguishing dilemma to those who can afford it.
One wants the irresistible bargain, but who will work the
land?
Recent vintages have shown the Mosel off,
and its renown has increased markedly.
For we are in the middle of a sea-change in the
Mosel valley, the ramifications of which are starting to
make themselves felt.
Back in the mid-eighties a guy like me had his pick
among literally dozens of interesting growers, who quietly
and inconspicuously made honorable Mosel wines—
which is to say fine Mosel wines. In the case of an estate
such as Merkelbach, most of the wine was sold in bulk.
Hans-Leo Christoffel and Willi Schaefer were simply
below the radar. If one searched diligently enough, eventually
one found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
But this generation is aging. In many cases their children
have moved away to easier and more lucrative
careers in the cities. That’s why so much good land is
available. But what’s really shaking things up isn’t the
ones who left, but the ones who remained.
This isn’t easy work! You have to love it in your bones,
and so the young generation of Mosel vintners has self-selected
its most enterprising and conscientious members; if you’re
a young guy making wine at all along the Mosel, you’re probably
making excellent wine. You wouldn’t have chosen
the life if you didn’t love wine and didn’t plan to excel.
But two critical things have changed. First, the young
person does not wish to work in obscurity. His only
chance to prosper lies in spreading the word quickly and
widely. So he sends his samples to all the necessary publications.
In theory, his wines are noteworthy, he makes his
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