Selbach-Oster ‘Ur’ Alte Reben Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese 2020 Magnum

£80.00

6 in stock

Street Wines View:

150cl bottle.

Pure excellence from the (lockdown) 2020 vintage, many good wines from this particular year are now being discovered to be incredibly interesting as holding extra qualities/depth to them, due not only a good vintage but to the fact there were no cars, no planes, no pollution and no travel. Mosel  winemakers stayed home and tended their vines with even more care than usual. From over 100 year old, ungrafted vines. Long spontaneous fermentation. Smoky slate flavour, lots of juice and multifaceted aromas. Great elegance.

The Selbach family has a long viticultural history dating back to 1661. Today, the Mitte Mosel estate is run by Johannes and Barbara Selbach with help from their children. The family farms 25 ha of vines in Zeltingen (Himmelreich, Sonnenuhr and Schlossberg) and Graach (Himmelreich and Domprobst), and out of these 6.5 ha are farmed organically where the rest follows sustainable practices. More than a half of their vineyards are planted on their own rootstocks and the majority are on very steep slopes, necessitating cultivation and harvesting by hand.

In the winery, the Selbachs aim to bring out the purity of fruit. Settling of the must is done by gravity, without the help of enzymes. Fermentation is natural, cool and slow and there is substantial lees contact to create extra texture. The ferment takes place in a mix of traditional old oak foudre and stainless steel. The wines are unfined. The estate produces both traditional Prädikat wines and intensely sweet botrytised wines but their main focus is shifting towards Trocken styles and Großes Gewächs. This is classic, intensely mineral Mosel Riesling, reflecting the minerality of those blue slate soils and perfectly expressing each vintage’s unique character.

Critic Reviews:

95 Points Robert Parker.

92 Points Wine Spectator.