Riel, Mosel Trip Report – 2022

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Riel, Mosel and South Germany field trip.

Reil during intermittent rain. Sep 2022.

If you think about wine and Germany, chances are you are thinking about Riesling and Mosel. The Mosel region is probably the most famous one with the snake that is the Mosel River famous for its Riesling grape which can be dry, off-dry to late harvest beernauselese with noble rot and if you google you will likely find a lot of further classifications of sweet wines that are quickly forgotten. Perhaps the introduction of sweetness is the most significant about Mosel and this sweetness is probably the reason why Riesling sometimes gets a negative reaction despite that the majority of them are dry wines. As an example, in a wine shop I was working part-time at in London has an owner that has a very open mind (especially being french!) when it comes to wine but he highlighted the importance of stating that the riesling is dry as he knew it would otherwise become discarded in the mind of the modern client that rarely has a sweet tooth, at least when it comes to wine!

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Regardless, the origin of our trip was not directly related to wine but rather a wedding in Heidelberg with its surrounding areas is big on agriculture as well as wine. Our trip was therefore not tailor-made for wine tourism but rather an addition to a 5-day trip to the South of Germany. Hopefully this post helps to navigate any wine-related trip to the surrounding describes the wine from the area and could still serve as a potential help for planning a trip in the region. The start of our trip began at the Frankfurt-Hahn airport. Geographically this is actually perfect for the Mosel area as you can reach it 20 minutes by taxi or if you rent a car that would probably be the preferred choice if you are planning on doing wine tourism. I knew that Mosel is a long winding river with very very steep hills making harvesting complicated but when we arrived it became clear that it has tonnes of small beautiful villages where a large percentage dedicate themselves to winemaking. The prices are also very reasonable still. In the past, red wine production was forbidden but in 1989 the appellation opened up for red varieties and we were told that about 17% of the crops are now red wine with a focus on spätburgunder but also other french grapes such as merlot. If spätburgunder does not ring a bell then basically it roughly translates to “black from burgundy” (pardon all germans) which is Pinot noir. Graueburgunder is pinot gris while weiseburgunder is pinot blanc.

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We stayed at a vineyard of Weingut Emil Dauns in the small village of Reil with perhaps 200 citizens along the river Mosel river. We chose this location as we wanted to be close to the airport as well as we wanted a train connection as we opted not to rent a car but if you are staying for a few days then I would certainly suggest a car or look up bike rentals in the area. We saw many peoples on electric bikes and that appears to be a stellar option to appreciate the beautiful scenery if you are not in a rush.

Higher view looking down at village opposite to Reil. (Apologies from the weather gods for the cloudy day)

When it comes to wine tours and experiences then part of the reason why this post is written is that I wish that there would be more unbiased honest trip reports from wine regions both negative and positive for people to get a better idea of how “trip worthy” a destination is. Upon arriving in Reil we were struck by the beautiful buildings and it is certainly a fantastic place to relax and experience nature but I was suspicious of what type of wine experience would be available. After all, if your plan is to drink wine from Mosel then this is something you can arrange easily almost anywhere in the world but in my opinion, it is the information and the stories as well as tasting and food experiences that make the trips worth it. Thankfully, it was our lucky day as we arrived perfectly for the 4 pm Reil wine tour as mentioned by our host (you can also ask the tourist office). The tour consists of a visit to 3 wineries out of 17 in the village but for this one it was all in german. Thankfully, we had a friendly couple visiting from Belgium that were happy to help us with the translation but also each of the 3 wineries we visited did their part in one-third in English which was great. The tour itself was only 9 euros per person and we sampled perhaps 10 wines total of varying quality over 2 hours which must be considered fantastic value by any standards :).

The tour guide started out by mentioning that previously there were over 100 winemakers in the city but that it is on the decline and many of the places now also open up as a guesthouse to make ends meet. It is sad to think that it is a market on the decline but one may suspect that it may be good for wine regions to question themselves and adapt to a new market, especially since the focus now often is on quality wine rather than overall volume. Regardless, our first visit on the tour is not a traditionalist as they are doing biodynamic wine. Just by coincidence we actually had a bottle of wine during lunch the same day as it was recommended by the restaurant.

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Lovely lunch looking over the Mosel River with a Melsheimer

Melsheimer

We were greeted by a young winemaker that gave a very energetic youthful impression and we were told that they do not care that much about growing the business but rather making enough money to make the business go around to continue the experiment of creating interesting wines. The tour was half in English and half in German.  The winemaker was very passionate about biodynamic practices with a Demeter-certification to show but as (myself) a pure novice on the actual practice of harvesting wine I was surprised regarding a comment that was made that they sprayed the wines but I assumed it would be chemicals but it appears that he was referring to spraying salt and copper that kills 85% of the bacteria. The large majority of their wines were dry but that he did experiment with a few different sweeter varieties. As we were about to leave I saw an orange wine with I believe 2 weeks skin-contact in the fridge and felt the temptation to get it despite travelling to London the very next day. Regardless of being good wine or not, having an orange wine in 2021-22 to me sends the message that you embrace organic practices but more importantly that you have a free spirit about the wine-making practice. This is an idea I may revise in the future…

The first wine we tried was an experiment was not with Riesling with the Juanita grape that is actually typically from the Netherlands. The flavour was quite sharp and very clean. The reason why Juanita is used for the experiment as a future proof as it is drought resistant.

At Melsheimer they use very old wood and they also store the wine for quite some time. For example, I believe one of the whites was bottle fermented for 3 years.

https://melsheimer-riesling.de/en/

Dauns

This is actually where we stayed overnight in a very humble house that offers their wine for very affordable prices around 6 euros per bottle. We were offered first sekt, semi-sweet sparkling wine which was easy-drinking and then some simple red wine that perhaps was not my favourite of the trip. The family has 5 hectares and does about 75 000 bottles. They try to recollect the bottles if possible due to sustainability but also that it brings the cost down from about 22-40c per bottle down to 12c per bottle. How that works in practice I have no idea!

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Strong alcohol was also produced at Dauns

Julius Tres

This is one of the larger producers from the village and they have a long family history in making wine dating back to 1684 and currently have 9 hectares which is one of the larger areas for a Reil winery. The current family member in charge has studied enology abroad and showed his English skills and mentioned that he has lived in South Africa. We were first served the wine in a nice garden and then went inside where there was a large painting of the quality of the harvest.

The wines themselves were very enjoyable easy-drinking but were not very complex making it a nice experience but nothing that stood out. The tour ended there which in the end was a very enjoyable walk around the town with some very friendly people and certainly some of the wines stood out. As it is a bit of a lottery which winemakers you are getting then should we have stayed longer I would have loved to give it another try the day after with a new set of wine makers. If we had more time we would probably have made a trip to Bullay, Barl, Traben Trarbach that are all larger cities with less than one hours walk away.  We have been told Bernkastel-Kues is a lovely place to visit and it is honestly a very tempting idea to organise another trip to Hahn-airport* focusing on the area around Bitburg and Trier.

  

Here are some further images from our 1,5 day trip to Reil, Germany: 

Mosel River

   

Steep hills

*The airport of Hahn and their connections was truly one of the worst experiences we (the authors) have had after having made at least 10 trips annually around the world as it is basically a container collection with the main attraction being their McDonalds. Not even the taxfree had more than 10 products and everything was closed. As long as you know what you are expecting that is fine but please do not expect regular affordable bus ride or trains from this regions (we were lucky to catch a bus to Frankfurt, the main hub, the next one would be in 4 hours) so please come prepared with your powerbanks, kindles, tablets well charged etc.

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