Books: Karl Heinrich Koch’s Moselwein
Books
Green Gold
By Edward Behr
Mosel Wine by Karl Heinrich Koch; translated by Lars Carlberg, Kevin Goldberg, David Schildknecht, and Per Linder; 160 pages, Dolman Scott, softcover, $25 (2022).
Caveat: I helped this book along as a volunteer, two of the translators have contributed to AoE, and a small part of it first appeared in AoE, so this is a notice rather than a review.
The cool Mosel Valley produces some of the greatest Riesling wine, and yet anyone who is wary of sweet wine chooses carefully and knowledgeably or more likely, living outside Germany, avoids German wine altogether. A tangle of reasons, including the complexities of labeling, explain why we don’t drink more German wine, but sugar looms large. In the latter half of the 20th century, Mosel wines were all more or less sweet, which isn’t to say that the best weren’t excellent. The general understanding was that the wines had always been that way, which would mean that the makers, going far back in time, long before temperature controls and sterile filtration, had added enough sulfur to stop the fermentations early and preserve the desired sugar. But is that what they did?
Forgotten was Karl Heinrich Koch’s Moselwein, a short book published in 1897, when Mosel was at the height of its reputation and fashion. Koch, a wine merchant, wrote that the wines’ appeal lay in their refreshing acidity; they were young, green-gold, fresh, even “zappy” (zappelt is the word that appears in Koch). There was, as always, a scant production of concentrated “dessert” wines, but apart from that the wines were dry.
In 2010, Lars Carlberg, who lives in the Mosel city of Trier and works hands-on in the vineyards, discovered Moselwein in the city library and archive and understood its importance. With a few others, he formed the idea of translating the book, out of devotion to the wines. At last in 2022, the project was completed and the book was published. Koch’s work is primarily geographic, illustrated with romantic engravings of villages, castles, and vineyards. The translation broadens the coverage, adds historical context, and brings the book into the present through highly informed short sections, careful footnotes, a detailed 1890 vineyard map in color, a section about important (and still producing) vineyards, and an explanation of current designations. The book closes with a facsimile of the original in German.
The translation speaks to current wine drinkers because in recent decades the Mosel growers have benefitted from warmer weather and reliably ripe grapes, and starting in the 1990s certain Mosel producers began to focus on wholly dry wines. Importers have paid attention. (Vom Boden was established out of a love of Riesling.) The book is highly recommended to anyone who wants to appreciate the great wines of the Mosel.●
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