Auf der Schmitt

Selbach-Oster’s "Schmitt," a highly rated site within today's Zeltinger Schlossberg, has a perfect south-by-southwest-facing exposure. Over the last several vintages, Selbach-Oster likes to harvest Riesling grapes from some of its best parcels en bloc, or “all together,” rather than in selective passes.

These en-bloc-picked sites—Rotlay, Schmitt, and Anrecht—are considered the top sections of their respective slopes. In Clotten’s 1868 Saar und Mosel Weinbau-Karte, the well-known Prussian tax map for the administrative district of Trier, these sites are marked in dark red, like most of the post-1971 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr, indicating the highest-taxed (and -rated) category.

On an 1829 map of Zeltingen, this core section of the present-day Schlossberg is listed as "Auf der Schmitt."

I took this photograph with my iPhone on a hike a couple of weeks ago. ♦