After the string of remarkable successes that Johannes Selbach has scored with block-pickings from this particular parcel it’s perhaps not surprising both that he essayed this year a dry version – 2009 Zeltinger Schlossberg Riesling trocken Schmitt – and that, warming up to his narration, he now refers to “this parcel behind the church and above the cemetery” where his father, Hans Selbach is buried as “the best in the Schlossberg if not at our estate. Papa – who had plenty of experience and was no follower of trends –used to say ‘you all go on about terroir; then you make three passes on the vineyards carrying three buckets, selecting with fancy finger work, then afterwards you say “so, that’s how the vineyard tastes.” Not a bit true! If you want the taste of terroir, keep your fingers out of it and pick everything en bloc.’” Not that this product of a November 18 picking is an exercise in methode ancienne, though, because Selbach decided to vinify both this and his “Anrecht” bottling from the Himmelreich entirely in stainless steel – a treatment generally accorded to at most a handful of chosen wines each vintage; the rest receiving at least in part a traditional fuder-elevage. His notion was that this might permit a clearer look at their terroir character. Grapefruit, quince, mirabelle, nut oils, wet stone, green tea, shrimp shell reduction, and smoky suggestions of peat and smoldering embers inform an intriguing nose and a densely-layered, silken-textured palate. This finishes in myriad registers, powerful yet focused and saliva-inducing. As it opens, it continues to display a greater sense of interactive complexity. Not only does this crave air, it also demands attention. Follow it and be fascinated for the next dozen or more years. “The autumn was super, with little stress,” remarked Johannes Selbach, who is more often seen furrowing his exceedingly high brow when describing even a highly successful harvest! What there was of botrytis, he reports, came late, and he reported that what rain there was in November was of negligible significance. Where many 2009 collections disappointed slightly as they reached the limits of possible vintage Oechsle, the Selbach-Oster collection proceeded from strength to profound strength. Most of the wines were bottled in May, but some of the dry and nobly sweet lots were very late even to finish fermenting and a few had not yet been bottled even when I tasted in September. True to an intention he stated last year, Selbach has bottled without Pradikat the fruits of block-pickings from his three top parcels, each named on its label. (For more about the principles involved, consult in particular my note on the 2005 “Schmitt” Auslese – in issue 169 – and that on this year’s dry “Schmitt” Spatlese below.) This year’s collection continues the trend for wines from Zeltingen’s Schlossberg to shine with special complexity and elegance after the many years in which they seemed destined at this address to take a back seat to those of Sonnenuhr. Not only were the vineyards of Zeltingen among the most celebrated on the Mosel during the 19th and early 20th century, but Karl Heinrich Koch epochal survey of 1881 places the Schlossberg as among the Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer’s top 11 sites, and one can appreciate this while savoring a wine like this year’s “Schmitt” trocken.Importers: There are a few regional importers of certain Selbach wines, but the majority (and those whose prices are noted above) are Terry Theise Estate Selections, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Inc., Syosset, NY; tel. (516) 677-9300
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