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

MOSEL WINES
82
carl loewen
mosel • leiwen
Here at Theise selections we like to say We ain’t no spinning cone zone! Hey, come to our office and
you’ll hear us say it all the time, at the water cooler, in the company kitchen, in the parking lot.
We hate spinning cones and everything they imply. Instead we like growers like Carl Loewen
who say lovely true things like “A good wine is always made first in the mind.” Here are some other
things he says.
“In the modern world of winemakers there are hitherto unimagined possibilities to form
the tastes of wines. The grape-breeders send us ever-new varieties, in my region there are people
using barriques, using the most current techniques to concentrate natural musts; special cultured
yeasts aim to form the characters of wines, and special enzymes to form bouquets.
Is this the brave new wine-world?
I have a different philosophy. Wine is a product of
nature, the badge of its origin. And anyone who thinks
this way views terroir as the defining important point.”
Pretty words, even good words, but only words—
until you taste.
And dear friend and reader, since the 2001 vintage
Loewen is the unheralded superstar in this assortment.
Our hero is one live wire, a vigorous intellect and a calm
confidence. When I first listed the wines I did so on the
basis of some hugely impressive samples I’d tasted at
Selbach; it was the tail-end of my Mosel week and I
couldn’t squeeze another appointment in—but I had to
have these wines. David Schildknecht happens to have
visited Loewen before I met him but after the wines were
in my book. “I’m not sure Terry knows what a tiger he
has by the tail,” David said to Bill Mayer. I do now.
Loewen is another grower who’d rather not know
the analytical figures for his wines, preferring to make
any necessary decisions based on taste and intuition.
“When you have the figures in your head you can’t taste
the wine any more,” he said. And he’s right, provided he
can absolutely trust that intuition.
Leiwen is just upstream from Trittenheim, and its best
site, the Laurentiuslay, is one of several unheralded Crus
along this stretch of the Mosel. A lot of the renown a site may
or may not possess is dependent on a flagship estate. To cite
a somewhat absurd example, if J.J. Prüm happened to have
been a resident of Pölich and not of Wehlen then the Pölicher
Held would enjoy the renown of the Wehlener Sonnenuhr.
There are great vineyards we don’t know because there hasn’t
been a great vintner to do them full justice.
At least till now. Loewen claims the Laurentiuslay
stands “among the best the Mosel has to offer. And it was a
stroke of luck for us the flurbereinigung was voted down
•Vineyard area: 6.2 hectares
•Annual production: 4,200 cases
•Top sites: Leiwener Laurentiuslay,
Thörnicher Ritsch, Detzemer, Maximiner
Klosterlay
•Soil types: Devonian & light weathered slate
•Grape varieties: 98% Riesling, 2% Müller-Thurgau
here because it was too expensive. The vineyard shows its
original profile with countless little terraces and walls.”
Another great site, he says, is the Thörnicher Ritsch. Many
years ago I went to Thörnich with Hans and Sigrid Selbach,
on a prowl for a vintner who would do the vineyard justice.
Hans knew well the old-timer’s wisdom; Ritsch was a great
site. Well we didn’t find its champion then, but we know
him now. Finally there’s the awkwardly-named Detzemer
Maximiner Klosterlay, from which Loewen makes a “tribute
to the old proprietor of this vineyard, the cloister of St
Maximin in Trier.” Mercifully he calls this wine simply
Maximiner, describing an “extreme terroir,” a 65% mountain
falling directly into the river, hard un-weathered blue
slate, with an open west flank that catches every moment of
afternoon and evening sun. Its position right up against the
river moderates nighttime temperatures and the soil retains
water so that “even in a Summer like 2003 we had enough
moisture for the grapes.”
Natural fertilizing, reduced yields, slow fermentations,
minimal handling—they only rack the wines once,
for instance, It’s an all-cask cellar. “I’m dubious about
wines made in steel,” says Loewen. “The summer after
the vintage they’re highly presentable, but I doubt they
have the stature to age well.”
Loewen didn’t pick a grape with less than 93
Oechsle. “The vintage in fact was made by a rainy
August,” he says. “Otherwise we’d have had another `03.
It’s amazing to actually be grateful for a rainy August, but
that’s how it was.” The rain restored the aquifer so the
vineyards could withstand the very dry 60 days that fol-