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Mosel wine producer hits record-breaking values at auction

Published:  27 September, 2011

A top wine producer from the Mosel Valley thinks German wine is undergoing a renaissance, after reaching record-breaking values at auction last week.

A top wine producer from the Mosel Valley thinks German wine is undergoing a renaissance, after reaching record-breaking values at auction last week.

Egon Müller, who owns land in Scharzhofberg in Wiltingen, on the River Saar, told Harpers that German wines are becoming "more and more popular again".

"We're coming out of a very long and bad time after the glycol scandal. We've had to fight for about 20 years to even be recognised as a serious producer of quality wines". But he said the wines were now being much better received, and the industry was "moving forward" once again.

This was in evidence at last week's Trier auction, where buyers paid €5,300 for one 75cl bottle of its Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA) 1999, and €5,300 for a double magnum of its Auslese Lange Goldcapsel 2010.

Müller said the Auslese Lange Goldcapsel 2010 sold for almost nine times the price of the regular 75cl bottle. "We only started to bottle magnums in 1988, and in the first years we didn't do a lot of it , and we only recently started with double magnums." But he said there were no plans to ramp up production of larger bottles, "if we do a lot of them the curiosity factor will be gone, and the price will be much closer to the smaller bottles."

Müller said that it had been a challenge to convince UK restaurants accustomed to serving French and Italian wines to serve German ones, but that trend was changing.

Müller will begin harvesting his vineyard next Tuesday October 4, 10 days ahead of last year. He is confident of its potential, saying "the grapes are beautifully ripe, we just need some fine weather during harvest".

Egon Müller's wines are available from Top Selection in the UK.

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