Die Mosel, the super wine bar in Traben-Trarbach has provided fertile hunting ground for new growers. A stand-out red on a visit in June 2023 was from Rinke. Marion Rinke works as a lawyer in Luxembourg, lives in Trier with her husband Alex, who works in catering in Trier and who now makes the wine. Their cellar is in Oberemmel in the Saar and their tasting room is in Mertesdorf on the Ruwer (right next to the river). It’s hard to keep up.
Their story seems familiar: a couple love wine and decide to buy some vines and make wine. Simple, right? It never is that straightforward but following a steep learning curve they have prevailed. They started in 2006 with Langsurer Bruderberg a steep vineyard in the unfashionable bit of the upper Mosel between Trier and Luxembourg. Its Muschelkalk (chalk with fossils) geology has more in common with northern Burgundy than the slate dominated Mosel.
In 2015 they picked up old vines in steep slate vineyards on the Saar in Oberemmeler Altenberg, Wiltinger Klosterberg and Wiltinger Braunfels.
It was love at first taste with the Fruhburgunder (aka Pinot Noir Precoce or Pinot Madeleine), an early ripening mutation of Pinot Noir. Seems delicate at first then, with air and a little time, the haunting aroma emerges and the Pinot-esque persistence reveals itself. Yum.
