Vicious Hail Storms in the Mosel

By: Anthony Gismondi

Monday, August 29 2011

From Johannes Selbach...

With sadness I have to report that our 2011 vintage took a beating, just before the finishing line. We were looking forward to a very good and finally plentiful crop.

Take a look at youtube and type in Hagel Zeltingen (hail Zeltingen) and you need not much explanation.

This happened Friday afternoon around 16:00 h. I returned from a trip through Asia this morning and spent the last 4 hours inspecting our vineyards which are not a pretty sight.

I estimate our 2011 vintage shrunk by 40% in course of that storm. Asie from that, thousands of cars are dented, their windows smashed, many roofs broken, etc., etc.

August 26th was not a good day.

The villages that were especially badly affected are: Veldenz, Brauneberg, Graach, Wehlen, Zeltingen, Loesnich, Kinheim, Kroev. Others suffered little and yet others nothing at all. Hail is a very local phenomenon but when you're hit, it gets very bad.

Sadly yours,

Johannes

Written By: ag

Anthony Gismondi

Anthony Gismondi is a Canadian wine journalist and one of North America's most influential voices in wine. For over 30 years, he has been the wine columnist for The Vancouver Sun. The twice-weekly column is distributed across Canada through the Postmedia Network to millions of readers. In addition, Anthony hosts the BC Food & Wine Radio Show, broadcast in 25 markets across B.C. and available as a podcast on major platforms. He launched Gismondionwine.com in 1997, attracting one million monthly users from 114 countries. It continues to be a valuable resource full of tasting notes, intelligent wine stories and videos for the trade and consumers. Conversations with wine personalities are available on his YouTube Channel.