2020 Weingut Staffelter Hof Müller Time SandersStruck

WINEMAKER: Jan Matthias Klein
VARIETAL: Riesling
REGION: Mosel Valley, GER
VITICULTURE: Certified Organic

Certified organic from the ‘Paradies’ vineyard where limestone and clay dominate. The Müller Thurgau clones here have wider bunches, with more space between bunches as well as between individual berries. This leads to less disease overall, and reduces the need for sprays.

Handpicked & destemmed with one third of the wine fermented on its skins for 17 days whilst the rest was direct pressed. Wild fermentation and maturation both occur in steel tanks. The resulting wine remains on gross lees for six months prior to bottling. Unfined, unfiltered & preservative free.

The cuvée name is a take on the slogan ‘It’s Miller Time’ whilst Sanderstruck is a Bernie Sanders reference. Also a little nod to Black Flag on the label. Why not?

At almost 1,200 years old, Weingut Staffelter-Hof is THE oldest working winery in the world & subsequently it is also one of the oldest companies of any kind in the world. Records show that this estate, long owned by the Belgian Benedictine Abbey of Stavelot (hence the “Staffelter” name) was established in 862AD! At the onset, wine production was exclusively for the monastery until the French Revolution. It was then later secularised in the early 1800's under Napoleon's rule and has been in the Klein family ever since.

The vineyard holdings span 10.2ha of diverse vineyards such as Paradies, Kirchlay, Letterlay, Steffensberg, and as far south as the Dhroner Hofberg. The winery itself is located in Kröv, a village in the heart of the middle Mosel on a sweeping 180⁰ curve of the river between the old, quiet winemaking villages of Wolf and Kinheim. This is not a hotbed of avant-garde creativity. Yet Jan Matthias Klein, a 7th generation winemaker at this estate, is doing something extraordinary here, crafting naturweine the likes of which have rarely been seen in the history of the Mosel.

A member of the Klitzekleine Ring, a group of about a dozen winemakers dedicated to saving steep slope Mosel vineyards that would otherwise be abandoned. Jan’s farming on the steep slate hills of the area is strictly organic—practicing since 2011 and certified organic since 2014 — which is a very hard and expensive commitment to make in the region. It is far easier to spray pesticides from a helicopter, for instance, than to scramble up and down 60⁰-70⁰ gradient slopes.

Hard work is an intrinsic part of the winery’s founding legend. Centuries ago, a donkey was originally the laborer of the steep slopes in Kröv until a wolf killed it. Legend has it that the Stavelot monks caught the wolf and made it do the vineyard work after it killed the donkey. Wolf “Magnus” is still the mascot of the winery today & as such, he features on a few labels of the estate grown wines within the portfolio...