Alfred Merkelbach Riesling Ürziger Würzgarten Spätlese 2022

During six decades of running this estate and making the wines, many people remarked that visiting with Alfred & Rolf Merkelbach at their home in Ürzig was like travelling into the past; not much changed here in 60 years, including the brothers' approach to winemaking. Well into their eighties, Alfred & Rolf were still tending the vines and making the wines with little help: heading into the steep Würzgarten and Treppchen to tie the posts, harvest, and then even racking off the large fuders they use for fermentation and blending. 

The vineyard holdings of this tiny, 1.9 hectare estate are divided between the Ürziger Würzgarten, Erdener Treppchen, and Kinheimer Rosengarten. Wine cultivation is ancient on these sites, lying just off the Mosel between Ürzig and Erden is the excavation of a Roman press house. When most of the Ürziger Würzgarten vineyards were replanted during the re-alignment of the vineyards (called “Flurbereinigung”), Merkelbach’s vines remained on original rootstock, with an average vine age of 45 years. The Merkelbachs were always firm believers in tradition, and while changes in climate and style preferences pushed up must weights and produced profoundly riper wines, the brothers crafted wines of a style more typical to an era long forgotten. Kabinetten remained refreshing, Spätlesen tasted like Spätlesen, and oechsle levels rarely exceeded the Pradikät range.

See below for the current and happy store of this great German estate.

Ürziger Würzgarten: Blue Devonian slate

Grape Varieties: 100% Riesling 

Look for aromas and flavors of ripe green fruit, green apples, peach, apricot, nectarine and lime zest. Tropical fruit of lychee and mango, a hint of honey and light flint minerality pick up on the palate that is juicy, crisp and mouthwatering. This great wine has a balanced sweetness with a vibrant acidity, good concentration and intensity, along with a long, juicy finish.

The Wine Advocate visited Merkelbach in 2023 and reported the following on this wonderful estate :

'Alfred and Rolf Merkelbach were already legends during their lifetime. The brothers were still working in the vineyards when they were over 80 years old, and did so for more than 60 years. Their vineyards were not located in the plain next to the campsites but in steep and steepest slopes, including the Ürziger Würzgarten, one of the best and most distinctive vineyards in the entire Moselle region. Its red-colored rock produces extremely delicate, elegant and herbal-spicy Rieslings, which even a few grams of residual sugar cannot harm. On the contrary: the fine acid structure and the saltine, mineral taste makes the Würzgarten Rieslings light-footed and yet supple, delicately fruity and spicy wines like no other in the world. Karl-Josef Christoffel became a winemaking legend here during his lifetime, and whenever a bottle of the now sadly deceased winemaker's wines is opened anywhere, his name and his art of bringing the uniqueness of the Würzgarten to the bottle are praised. Alfred and Rolf Merkelbach are also praised, perhaps even more so in the US than in Germany, where they are only known to die-hard Mosel fans. Until recently, their wines were perhaps too inexpensive for snobbish wine lovers, while true aficionados could never get enough of their light, fine and only subtly sweet Moselle classics.

In 2017, the brothers, who were already in their ninth decade of life and were struggling to get up the steep slope to their beloved "Urglück" plot, where the oldest, still ungrafted vines with the sweetest and most intense grapes of the Würzgarten are located, enlisted the help of Johannes Selbach, who himself runs Weingut Selbach-Oster, as well as a wine trading house, both also in Ürzig. Selbach always added the Merkelbach wines to his own when he was preparing the containers for the United States. Johannes speaks perfect English, and Selbach-Oster is also a well-known brand on the US wine scene. The popularity there of the Merkelbachs also has to do with his business acumen.

In 2018, Johannes and Barbara Selbach, now assisted by son Sebastian and daughter Hannah, took over the entire management of the Merkelbach plots in the crus Würzgarten and Rosenberg; in 2020, the entire business was transferred to Selbach. Out of respect for the brothers and their brand as well as their very own style, Johannes Selbach did not simply take over the 1.4 hectares of vineyards but continues to vinify the wines in the cellar of the domaine in the Brunnenstrasse and to run the brand under the name "Geschw. Albertz Erben Alfred Merkelbach" in the spirit and style of the brothers and "as good and authentic as possible," he hopes. The label has also remained unchanged.

We can hardly taste the new management. At most, the wines have become even more polished and impeccable. The Kabinett and Spätlese from the Würzgarten, for example, are model Rieslings of the 2022 vintage, and the ultra fine and strictly limited 2022 Auslese from the "Urglück" is the apotheosis of Riesling from the Würzgarten.

I tasted the 2022 series from Merkelbach on the day before the funeral of Rolf Merkelbach, who had died of old age two weeks earlier at the age of 86. If he tasted the 2022s, he must have smiled, which he usually did anyway. If not, his older bother, Alfred, did, despite his sadness at the loss.

Here's to the fabulous Merkelbach brothers. They will remain inseparable and unforgotten in our hearts, especially as their wines live on, even in the US, the country that neither of them ever set foot in and where their wines are as much appreciated and loved as the brothers themselves.'