The kingdom of heaven does a hell of a job. So absurdly steep, as if it led straight into the inferno, the terrain plunges into the abyss, this vineyard would be double-raven black if it were a ski slope and were on the Matterhorn instead of the Moselle. The winemaker can only work on his steep slope with the help of cables, secure like a mountaineer in the high mountains, every step an ordeal, every movement a feat of strength, no summit happiness as a reward. He has to be as free from giddiness as a high wire artist in the ring, and not just once a year, but a dozen times. The capricious vines, some of which were planted as early as the Imperial Era and the Weimar Republic, require so many passes and need to be tended, tied and cut with the greatest care.And what is the wages for this drudgery in the Kingdom of Heaven? Tiny grapes, hardly bigger than lentils, which only bring a minimal yield and for which every fellow flatland winemaker has nothing but ridicule and malice.
Jakob Strobel y Serra
Deputy head of the features section.
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Johannes Selbach, however, is firmly convinced that he will spend his life as a winegrower in the Garden of Eden. He cultivates twenty-four hectares of vineyards between Bernkastel, Kues and Zeltingen, exclusively steep and steep slopes, all of which belong to the high aristocracy of the Middle Moselle terroirs: Graacher Himmelreich, Zeltinger Himmelreich, Graacher Domprobst, Zeltinger Schlossberg, Zeltinger and Wehlener Sundial - these have been shine for centuries and Gloria of the oldest German wine-growing region, grandiose locations that are worth every drop of sweat of the toil. The vines stand here on blue Devonian slate, which is so fine-leaved that it can be broken with the bare hand and allows the plants to drive their roots twelve or fourteen meters deep into the ground.In this way you can get water even in the driest years and at the same time you can soak yourself up with all the minerality of the stone in order to develop the archetypal taste of the Mosel Rieslings.
From New York straight to the vineyard
Johannes Selbach, whose family has been winegrowing on the Moselle for four hundred years, even owned their own fleet in the past and shipped their wines to Rotterdam, is not about anything else. Even as a child, he had to help out on the steep slopes, while his classmates enjoyed themselves in the swimming pool, which initially completely spoiled his desire to become a vintner. Instead of following the family tradition and continuing to climb up and down the vineyards like a chamois, he studied business administration in Cologne, went to Philadelphia on a scholarship to Penn University, then worked in a PR agency in New York, but then came back still on the taste and returned to the bosom of the Selbach winemaking dynasty. Today his whole passion is Riesling,ninety-four percent of his vineyards are planted with which he takes care of together with his son Sebastian, who for his part never had any doubts about his future. The small remainder is shared by Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer, Johannes Selbach's secret second love, a faithlessness that Riesling is sure to easily forgive.