Piesporter Goldtropfchen

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Piesporter Goldtropfchen

Mosel Vineyard Walk

Mosel Vineyard Walk

Mosel Vineyard Walk

10 - 16 September 2007

The first part of the walk explores the Saar, which is just to the south of the city of Trier. The River Saar is a navigable waterway, the vineyards above it are some of the steepest in the world and are famous for their sweet wines such as the awesome ‘Eiswein’. We spend two days exploring the region from our wine-estate hotel in the pretty village of Ockfen with visits to the top wine estates such as Von Hövel and Schloss Saarstein.

Leaving the Saar, we walk through forest and drop down into the pretty Ruwer valley. The Ruwer itself is little more than a stream and the valley is very rural and very quiet. It is more sheltered than the Saar. The wines are intense and fine grained, sometimes with a haunting aroma of blackcurrant. We stay at a wine estate hotel here, and enjoy their wines over dinner at their Michelin* restaurant.

The Ruwer flows into the Mosel just downstream from Trier. From this point onwards, for the next three days, the walk follows the River Mosel as it winds its way down to the Rhine. We cover the central section with villages of Trittenheim and Piesport. Whilst here we discover the genuine wines such as Piesporter-Goldtropfchen from men such as Theo Haart, which are quite excellent.

The next day covers the classic vineyards of the Bernkastel ‘S-bend’. This area is sometimes called the ‘middle-Moselle’ but this has never been an official description. The soils change radically even within this small area, from the brown soil of Brauneberg, (the favoured site of the Victorians), to the classic blue slate of Bernkastel and Wehlen. These give the racy direct wines that have been favoured recently. We will have superb tastings with the top estates that we know well. These include Max-Ferd. Richter, Schloss Lieser, Dr Loosen and Molitor.

Finally on the last day we arrive in the red sandstone of Urzig and Erden that give very interesting spicy wines.

The last 3 nights are based in a 4* ‘wine-hotel’ in Zeltingen, the wine village next to Wehlen, with which it shares the great ‘Sonnenuhr’ (or sundial) slope.

If you have ignored German wines until recently and feel you should learn what for instance ‘Piesporter-Goldtropfchen Spätlese Feinherb Grosses Gewëchs’ actually means, there is no better way of doing this! We will taste a very large number of wines, dry, off-dry, medium, sweet and intensely sweet that these days have wonderful flavours and a huge ‘delight factor’.