Alex's Notes & Musings on Selbach-Oster & Viticulture in the Mosel
"Mature fruit and luscious juiciness: that is the captivating Selbach house style." Gault & Millau Guide, 2020.
Selbach‑Oster is one of the Mosel’s most respected, historical estates, with the family's involvement in growing grapes and shipping prized Mosel Riesling across Europe dating back to the 1600's.
Today the estate is run by Johannes Selbach and his wife Barbara, who have elevated the domaine’s reputation while maintaining traditional methods. Their children have also now become increasingly involved, with the torch being passed to the next generation.
Winemaking & Ethos
“Selbach-Oster might be one of the hottest domains along the Mosel, if not in all Germany." The Wine Advocate 2020,
Stephan Reinhardt.
Selbach‑Oster is known for a hands‑off, vineyard‑first approach. Johannes often describes his goal as “letting the vineyards speak” rather than imposing a heavy stylistic signature. This seems to be such a common theme amongst the producers we represent at Wine Obsessed - now commonly known as 'minimal intervention'.
This must be reflected in the wines rather than just be marketing speak, as so many of my favourite wines appear to have been made under this philosophy.
This philosophy in more detail: wines that are not overly 'worked' i.e. long, slow, cool, unrushed fermentations; minimal reliance on flavour-shaping tricks, with Selbach‑Oster not doing any heavy bâtonnage (stirring of the lees which if heavy would make the wines fatter but more obvious and less delicate); no overt new oak; no exaggerated residual sugar unless the vintage naturally calls for it.
It's all about letting the fruit speak - purity, balance, and transparency are the guiding ideals, with a strong preference for wines that show the Mosel's slate minerality and fine, tensile acidity.
The estate produces a full range of Mosel styles - in order of sweetness: feinherb, Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, and noble-sweet wines (Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese, both from overripe grapes shrivelled by botrytis aka noble rot with the latter most extreme and picked later, as in e.g. Tokaj and Sauternes), plus some of the region’s most characterful single‑parcel bottlings, like the wine in your case from their famed Zeltinger Sonnenuhr vineyard.
Sustainability
Their approach to sustainability is curious (not in a bad way) and in-line with what I have heard from several other Mosel estates, namely that they don't see it "as a branding exercise" in terms of aggressively marketing themselves as "green".
I am not sure whether this is so that they can keep their options open vis-a-vis chemical use if the you-know-what were to hit the fan in the vineyards, or a refusal to spend the money and go through the arduous process of gaining organic and/or biodynamic certification. My hunch is these small family estates have cared for their land for so long, that they don't see the need to prove it purely for marketing purposes. I do see their point, although it does mean that there is no external audit of their activities (not that I know of, anyway).
What they say they do commit to is the following:
- Zero use of herbicides. These nasties damage soil ecosystems such as mycorrhizal fungi, critical for vine health and longevity, and make their way into your wine (and our water)...
- Minimal, targeted treatments where necessary.
- Soil health is maintained through the use of cover crops for natural rather than artificial regulation of soil nutrients. Artificial fertiliser is bad news (for various reasons I won't go into here): soils need adequate levels of essential NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) amongst others. Various cover crops are "fixers" of these nutrients, grown across the year and rotated. In the winter, grazing sheep are also increasingly used in vineyards around the world as they are great natural fertilisers (I see this a lot in England, the small Shropshire breed is ideal for this), albeit the Mosel might not be suitable for this given how steep the vineyards are?
- Low inputs that respect old vines and biodiversity.
- Energy efficiency in the winery: relying on gravity (rather than pumps) and cool ambient temperatures.
Terroir - the environment that dictates viticultural and winemaking methods, and shapes the wine
Selbach‑Oster farm around 24 hectares of steep, slate‑rich vineyards in the Middle Mosel, and their holdings include some of the region’s most iconic sites.
Your wine, from the spectacular Zeltinger Sonnenuhr vineyard, comes from soils of Blue Devonian slate, rich in minerals, known to produce delicate Riesling with lifted aromatics. Even though they are delicate without high alcohol content, they are so lively and with great ageing potential. Fine German Rieslings will go on for many decades! Some, even, for a century or more.
The Devonian slate is also prized for its ability to retain heat, crucial in this cool region for adequately ripening the famously late-ripening Riesling (in addition to the roles that the river and steep slopes play that I mentioned on your postcard). Devonian as in the county of Devon? Yes! But I'll spare you a lesson on geology.
Many of Selbach-Oster's vineyard parcels are old vines, some over 80 years old. The steepness of the slopes means most work has to be done by hand, although this has the great benefit of preserving fruit integrity and allowing meticulous selection.
Albeit with exceptions, the majority of the world's good-to-great wines are made from hand-harvested fruit. With the advent of ever-improving machine harvesters this might begin to drastically change in the not so distant future.
Many cheaper wines now increasingly come from machine-harvested fruit (as is an increasing amount of Bacchus in England). And it might not be a bad thing when you hear published accounts of labour atrocities in some wine regions (in Southern Italy & Champagne most recently, although action is said to have been taken). Incredibly, Champagne has to bring in circa 120,000 pickers every year. But will machine-harvesting be feasible or even acceptable to growers anytime soon in places like the Mosel? I very much doubt it.
A Benchmark - though Riesling might be loved by some, but not by others!
Or should that be 'Bencheuro'? (Oh dear).
Many enjoy Mosel Riesling for its refreshment value, clarity (many say "transparency") and 'grapiness' and its stony minerality (that word yet again!), and I love how German Riesling (from good producers) ages: a compound arising from a 'precursor' naturally produced in the grape gradually makes a Riesling smell like petrol/kerosene.
In Australian Riesling, by way of example, this character is often apparent much sooner as the compound's concentration is influenced by sun exposure. The compound is known as TDN (short for its incredibly long chemical name) and is a member of the norisoprenoid family, in case you were wondering. This is a family one hears a lot about at winemaking school! A petrol/kerosene character doesn't sound alluring but somehow it really is...
Where was I? Oh yes: albeit flying somewhat under-the-radar - as so many great producers do (probably because we don't see them in supermarkets) - Selbach-Oster is widely regarded as a benchmark for classical Mosel Riesling.
We realise some enjoy Riesling and some don't, and that's of course totally fine. We all have different palates, and thus likes and dislikes when it comes to food and drink. It's important to remember - especially us bods in the business of wine - that personal preference plays a huge role in what makes a wine "good". If you don't enjoy this style of wine, please do let us know!
