Winemaker Notes
A great wine to accompany savory food and also to enjoy by itself. Low in alcohol (9%) but full of flavor, it is juicy and crisp at the same time and goes great with delicately seasoned flavorful food of all sorts.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Selbach 2008 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett smells alluringly of Normandy cider, nut oils, green tea, and hedge flowers. Alkaline, wet stone, and saline mineral elements are all also adumbrated in the nose, then offer counterpoint to the richly ripe apple and white peach, flowers and herbs on a palate of creamy richness yet invigorating refreshment and levity. Here is the sort of improbably balanced Mosel Kabinett that is as delightfully fascinating to sip on its own as it is versatile at table, and that will prove as infectious fifteen or more years from now as it is today. What’s more, this remarkable value illustrates the opportunity that so many German wines – and virtually no others on earth – offer of exploring the complex virtues of a great vineyard site at a price most wine lovers can afford to pay most days of the week.
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Wine Spectator
Accents of smoke and stone distinguish this apple- and floral-flavored Riesling, which lingers with mineral on the chalklike texture. Classy. Drink now through 2020.
Riesling possesses a remarkable ability to reflect the character of wherever it is grown while still maintaining its identity. A regal variety of incredible purity and precision, this versatile grape can be just as enjoyable dry or sweet, young or old, still or sparkling and can age longer than nearly any other white variety. Somm Secret—Given how difficult it is to discern the level of sweetness in a Riesling from the label, here are some clues to find the dry ones. First, look for the world “trocken.” (“Halbtrocken” or “feinherb” mean off-dry.) Also a higher abv usually indicates a drier Riesling.
Following the Mosel River as it slithers and weaves dramatically through the Eifel Mountains in Germany’s far west, the Mosel wine region is considered by many as the source of the world’s finest and longest-lived Rieslings.
Mosel’s unique and unsurpassed combination of geography, geology and climate all combine together to make this true. Many of the Mosel’s best vineyard sites are on the steep south or southwest facing slopes, where vines receive up to ten times more sunlight, a very desirable condition in this cold climate region. Given how many twists and turns the Mosel River makes, it is not had to find a vineyard with this exposure. In fact, the Mosel’s breathtakingly steep slopes of rocky, slate-based soils straddle the riverbanks along its entire length. These rocky slate soils, as well as the river, retain and reflect heat back to the vineyards, a phenomenon that aids in the complete ripening of its grapes.
Riesling is by far the most important and prestigious grape of the Mosel, grown on approximately 60% of the region’s vineyard land—typically on the desirable sites that provide the best combination of sunlight, soil type and altitude. The best Mosel Rieslings—dry or sweet—express marked acidity, low alcohol, great purity and intensity with aromas and flavors of wet slate, citrus and stone fruit. With age, the wine’s color will become more golden and pleasing aromas of honey, dried apricot and sometimes petrol develop.
Other varieties planted in the Mosel include Müller-Thurgau, Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) and Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc), all performing quite well here.