Eitelsbach – Ruwer Valley , Germany

People often complain that when they are on holiday they want to relax. Well for a 27 year man I can hardly imagine to put myself at ease. I always want to push more to find some new history in old cities, trying to be a good pedestrian covering each quarter and there is hardly any time to lose with so much yet to see. In the end I always feel like coming back to discover the place again only to the advantage to see a lot has changed (evolved to give it a perspective).

Left Paris 6 30 am in the morning only to find traffic jam(it does not just happen in Mumbai). Late on schedule to Berlin ,would have thought would miss the wine tasting as planned in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer region.

I was told that the GPS in the car points out prominent wineries only to our dismay. Going through a small town of Eitelsbach (a small village on Ruwer) and deciding purely on gut feel , discovered Estate Karthauserhof. My jaws just dropped at sight of steep, really very steep vines in Ruwer wine region. This estate dates from the 14th Century, when the property was donated to an order of Carthusian monks .

1986 Christoph Tyrell took over the estate in its 6th family generation. In the following years, together with cellar master and caretaker Ludwig Breiling, particular emphasis was placed on the making of drier wines. Well I couldn’t agree more(tell later).
Well we were greeted by none other than Christoph Tyrell , who played the perfect host. The estate was huge , we decided to learn about the vines from Mr. Tyrell. This super exotic -vineyard with a gradient of 55% is planted with 90% Riesling. The fruit is harvested by hand and fermented in stainless steel vats. I was curious about the little tank like machine that went between the vines and ploughed the soil.

After mulling over a lot of technical viticulture practices which are challenging enough because of the terroir we hit the wine tasting. The tasting room was nothing short of a museum in itself. Furniture and artifact dating back centuries , painting and sketches of the regions rich history.

The wines range from very dry to noble sweet. The funny thing is that the wines even having hallucinating levels of residual sugar didn’t taste that sweet. Thanks to acidity (7 gm/l ) which had perfectly balanced the wine , a craftsmanship. Result being a dry Riesling is actually under 8 gm/l sugar ! Only on the 5th wine we really started feeling sweetness and it was already 30 gm/l sugar. Incredible !

Riesling Kabinett Trocken 2007: A dry Riesling , soft clean nose a little herby , finish medium long. Didn’t appeal to me personally.

Riesling Spätlese 2007: Clean and aromatic , concentrated nose , fruit forward , nice acidity . Amazing.

Riesling Auslese 2007: Good structure , elegant , well defined nose and long finish. Excellent.


Riesling Kabinett 2007: Amazing fruit , hint of spice , lime and full of flavour. A good wine indeed.

Riesling Auslese #53 2007: Just bought the bottle , not tasted yet.


While going through one of the books in the library titled , “100 Best Wineries of Germany” , I realized that I was in one them. By luck I had landed in one of the best wineries in Germany and the long journey was worth it.
This region obviously has one of the steepest vineyards , which makes it a scenic beauty as well. And of course Riesling , the most versatile grape variety.