Wine & Spirits - February 2018 - 34

Mountain

Rescue

by David Schildknecht

Along a five-mile hairpin loop in the Mosel, an intrepid group of self-styled
"mountain rescuers" has been channeling history and renewing once-revered,
long-neglected slopes, perhaps ushering in a Second Great Awakening to the
beauties of Mosel riesling.

At the onset of the new millennium, Daniel Vollenweider envisioned a life dedicated to delicately sweet
riesling. "I'd come to realize that it was possible on
the Mosel, unlike in my native Switzerland, to acquire
outstanding vineyards for little money." Those in
the Wolfer Goldgrube-mostly long-neglected-
were densely studded with 60- to 80-year-old vines
trained traditionally to single posts and going for 6-8
Deutsch marks ($3-$4) a square meter.
That could have been said of many steep slopes
on the Mosel. So why Goldgrube? Vollenweider's
reply is self-effacingly candid. "First, I liked the idea
of residing in Traben-Trarbach," adjacent twin towns
renowned for their Belle Epoque architecture (a legacy of their role in riesling's rise to international stardom), "and I intuited that life in a tiny, insular Mosel
wine village was probably suited only for somebody
born there. Also, the name ['gold mine'] appealed to
me. Lastly, certain Mosel sites have become almost
synonymous with top estates. In a sense, Fritz Haag
is Brauneberger Juffer. Erni Loosen has more vineyards in the Wehlener Sonnenuhr than J.J. Prüm
but 'Wehlener Sonnenuhr' equals 'J.J.' My goal was
that 'Wolfer Goldgrube' would equal 'Vollenweider.'" There were definitely no challengers for that
title. Even so, he didn't imagine how quickly his goal
would be achieved, nor that within half a dozen years
he would be organizing a cadre of ardent young winegrowers on whose common project of vineyard restoration he conveyed the suitably Swiss name Bergrettung-"mountain rescue."
Two and a half miles downstream from Wolf, the
river bends sharply at a bridge between Traben and
Trarbach. Ahead, precipitous vineyards gouge the
sides of a narrow, rugged, forest-rimmed gorge where
34

WINE & SPIRITS

FEBRUARY 2018

the Kautenbach rushes abruptly to meet the Mosel.
Heading around that bend, a west-facing wall of slate
known as the Starkenburg ("mighty fortress") looms
on your right with a steepness, height and mass that
are formidable even by Mosel standards. Reaching
Enkirch, you've just traveled five miles and are a mere
hundred yards from where you began. Records show
that "Rüszling" was the preferred grape of Trarbach
more than a century before the 1787 edict of Elector
Clemens Wenzeslaus "to grub-up all low-value vines
in favor of riesling" that is generally thought to mark
the onset of this grape's march to Mosel glory. In an
1804 Napoleonic classification of Mosel vineyards by
wine price, Wolf is classed in the fifth-highest of ten
tiers, and a detailed 1811 map shows nearly every
slope between Wolf and Enkirch planted to vines.
In 1860, militarily minded Prussians built the Cannonenbahn railway along the Mosel, with a spur to
Traben. And before that decade closed, dry, flowery,
spritzy, invigoratingly sharp Mosel riesling was taking European capitals by storm. Traben and Trarbach
prospered in the waning years of the 19th century
as Mosel riesling went from local hero to international star.
Time for the tax man to become involved: In two
pioneering works of statistical cartography (based
on meticulous documentation of viticultural potential and price histories), the Prussian government
sorted all Mosel vineyards into six classes. The dark
red patches on those maps denote acreage in the top
two, which included ten of today's official Einzellagen
along the five-mile switchback from Wolf to Enkirch.
Yet when, in 1994, Stuart Pigott and Hugh Johnson
began reviving interest in these maps as possible keys
to a vineyard classification envisioned by Germany's

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - February 2018