2022 Riesling Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Auslese**

“All the way back to the 18th century,” said Sebastian Selbach, “there always was a Selbach somehow involved in wine, making or selling it. The Oster name comes from the other side of the family.” The union of the families worked as the Selbachs specialized in trade, while the Osters owned vineyards. The negociant side of the business lives on under the name J. & H. Selbach, founded in 1920/1921. The Selbach-Oster wine estate itself was founded in its current form in the early 1960s to create a distinction between the wine estate and the negociant business – but the Selbach family runs both. Notably, the Selbachs are commissionaires at the Trier and Bad Kreuznach auctions. Johannes Selbach joined his parental estate in 1989 after stages with Bischöfliche Weingüter in Trier, studying economics in Cologne and business at Penn State University and a work stint in the US. He took over entirely in the early 1990s. His American connections ensured that the estate was always focused on export – because even his mother, Sigrid Selbach (née Pauly), spent an exchange year in the US in 1953 as part of a US-sponsored program for young citizens of the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany – traveling there by boat from the port of Genoa, Italy. Sebastian Selbach joined the business in the summer of 2019 after training with Dönnhoff in the Nahe and Müller-Catoir in the Pfalz, a business degree followed by an oenology and viticulture degree from Geisenheim and further stages at Hofstätter in Alto Adige and Jim Barry in Clare Valley, Australia. Today, the business is run by Barbara (née Grüter), Johannes and Sebastian Selbach. They farm 24 hectares of vineyards, mostly in Zeltingen (Sonnenuhr, Schlossberg, Himmelreich) as well as in the Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Graacher Domprobst and Himmelreich and the Bernkasteler Badstube and Graben. Wines are made in both stainless steel, Fuder and Doppelfuder (2,000L) in the old cellar in the Uferallee in central Zeltingen-Rachtig. The new building on the outskirts of the village houses both the negociant business and the tasting room. Plantings are 93% Riesling, followed by Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir and Gewürztraminer. Pinot Noir plays an increasing role ever since the Selbachs bought a 1990-planted parcel in the Zeltinger Himmelreich in 2016. They initially thought the grapes would make it into their Sekt but made a red wine in 2016, sold under their negociant label. As of 2017, they sold it under the estate label. Since then, they have added a further parcel in the Kinheimer Rosenberg and in 2018, they planted the Hell parcel in the Zeltinger Himmelreich. “We are now all fully on board with Pinot Noir,” says Johannes Selbach. “We see huge potential, and we love it because Pinot Noir is a variety that lives off nuance.” I share his enthusiasm and cannot wait to taste more. The track record of this estate and the brilliance of the Rieslings – dry, off-dry and sweet – is dazzling. They are amongst the best. There are some special bottlings from single parcels. Johannes Selbach explained that these wines originate from a competitive experiment: “Anrecht, Schmitt and Rotlay are the result of the spirit of the early 2000s, which was dominated by the idea of bigger, better, faster, more.” Johannes Selbach and his father competed on who could make the best wine, the former insisting that the best parcels had completeness, while the latter maintained that the best wine was made from a selection of grapes only. The son’s wine was, in his own words, “big, a sumo wrestler rather than a ballerina.” He conceded immediately to his father’s more balanced, nuanced wine, harvested en bloc from the single, outstanding parcels. The idea, said Selbach, is “no anti-selective harvest because this kind of non-selective harvesting [of various ripeness grades] only works in the very best parcels of the best sites.” They are always made from the same parcels, almost invariably the last to be harvested. The 2022 harvest started on 5th September with Gewürztraminer. “But what rescued the harvest for us,” said Sebastian Selbach,” was the rain in mid-September. The harvest itself was relatively unproblematic, and we finished on 18 October.” Two thousand and twenty-two saw no skin contact for the Riesling grapes. During my visit, I tasted the full range of 2022 Rieslings, a Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir from 2020 and a Pinot Noir from 2021.