![UhlenvonBrückeIMG 5457](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/UhlenvonBr%C3%BCckeIMG_5457.jpg)
The Lower Moselle (german: Untermosel or ''Terrassenmosel'') is the name given to the lower reaches of the
Moselle river - just under 100 kilometres long - in Germany between
Pünderich and the Moselle's confluence with the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, so ...
at
Koblenz. The Lower Moselle landscape differs from that of the Middle and Upper Moselle, much of it forming a narrower valley with high and steep sides in places. On the
cut banks of the river that are oriented towards the south and west, vineyards are managed, often on the tiniest, terraced strips of land on steep hillslopes.
The upgrading of the Moselle into a waterway for big ships in the 1960s has permanently changed the appearance of the river and its banks. Five changes of level between Koblenz and Zell in order to build locks for large ships have changed a riverbed that was narrow in places and wide in others with gently sloping banks into a canal-like waterway that is contained by artificial walls and rock embankments in the areas of the locks.
Geography and boundaries
The Lower Moselle begins in the wine village of Pünderich and ends at its confluence in the city of Koblenz where it empties into the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, so ...
at the
Deutsches Eck
''Deutsches Eck'' (, "German Corner") is the name of a promontory in Koblenz, Germany, where the Mosel river joins the Rhine. Named after a local commandry of the Teutonic Order ("Teutonischer Orden"), it became known for a monumental equest ...
("German Corner"). It separates the
Central Upland mountain ranges of the
Eifel and
Hunsrück and flows through the two counties of
Cochem-Zell
Cochem-Zell (German: ''Landkreis Cochem-Zell'') is a district (''Kreis'') in the north-west of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are Mayen-Koblenz, Rhein-Hunsrück, Bernkastel-Wittlich, and Vulkaneifel.
History
In 1816 the d ...
and
Mayen-Koblenz
Mayen-Koblenz is a district (''Kreis'') in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from north clockwise) Ahrweiler, Neuwied, Westerwaldkreis, district-free Koblenz, Rhein-Lahn, Rhein-Hunsrück, Cochem-Zell, and V ...
in the north of the state of
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
. The settlements in the valley are predominantly small villages that increased in area towards the end of the 20th century. Towns with central administrative functions are
Zell Zell may refer to:
Places Austria
* Zell am See, in Salzburg state
* Zell am Ziller, in Tyrol
* Zell, Carinthia, in Carinthia
* in Upper Austria:
** Bad Zell
** Zell am Moos
** Zell an der Pram
** Zell am Pettenfirst
Germany
* Zell im Fichtelg ...
(pop. in 2009 = 4,200) and
Cochem
Cochem is the seat of and the biggest town in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With just over 5,000 inhabitants, Cochem falls just behind Kusel, in the Kusel district, as Germany's second smallest district seat. Since 7 J ...
(pop. in 2009 = 4,900). Tourism and winegrowing are important economic factors in this region.
The first division of the river into the Lower and Middle/Upper Moselle may have been a consequence of the foundation of the Roman provinces of ''
Germania superior'' (Upper Germania) and ''
Gallia Belgica
Gallia Belgica ("Belgic Gaul") was a province of the Roman Empire located in the north-eastern part of Roman Gaul, in what is today primarily northern France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, along with parts of the Netherlands and Germany.
In 50 BC, a ...
'' in the 1st century AD. The border between the two administrations crossed the river between the present-day Moselle towns of
Traben-Trarbach
Traben-Trarbach on the Middle Moselle is a town in the Bernkastel-Wittlich district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the like-named ''Verbandsgemeinde'' and a state-recognized climatic spa (''Luftkurort''). The city lies in the ...
and
Zell Zell may refer to:
Places Austria
* Zell am See, in Salzburg state
* Zell am Ziller, in Tyrol
* Zell, Carinthia, in Carinthia
* in Upper Austria:
** Bad Zell
** Zell am Moos
** Zell an der Pram
** Zell am Pettenfirst
Germany
* Zell im Fichtelg ...
. In the Late Middle Ages this line divided the Upper (''Obere'') and Lower Archdiocese (''Untere Erzstift'') of the
Electorate of Trier. From 1798 to 1814 it formed the boundary between the French departements of Saar and Rhine and Moselle, from 1824 to 1999 the provinces of
Koblenz and
Trier
Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...
. It is also where the line of 50° latitude runs, which was often seen as a critical boundary for winegrowing in northern countries. Biologists see in the Mediterranean fauna of the microclimatically favourable southern hillsides of the Moselle valley the markings of a northern boundary of the Mediterranean region. The state wine authorities call the Lower Moselle the Burg Cochem Wine Area (''Weinbaubereich Burg Cochem'').
File:Beilstein.jpg, 3. Old terraces below a medieval castle: the ruins of Metternich with the ''Beilsteiner Schlossberg'' hillside
File:KardenIMG 5481.jpg, 4. Traditional post planting on the lower slope. The upper terraces have been left fallow. ''Kardener Dechantsberg''
File:HatzenportIMG 5484.jpg, 5. New vineyards with trellis wire fences after the old terraces were cleared in ''Hatzenporter Kirchberg''
File:TreppeIMG 5512.jpg, 6. Terraces in the old part of the ''Alkener Burgberg''
File:Kobern Rundmauer.JPEG, 7. Old, rounded dry stone wall on rock base: ''Koberner Schlossberg'' below the Late Romanesque chapel
A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...
Geology and history
![Elzhofberggrauwackeschiefer2007](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Elzhofberggrauwackeschiefer2007.jpg)
The hillsides of the Lower Moselle, with their strikingly varied types of rock and rock formations, bear witness to the end of a development phase in the earth's history in the Moselle area, which began about 390 million years ago in the
Lower Devonian. At that time there was a shallow sea in this region that was bounded in the north by the
Old Red Continent and in the south by the island structures of the Central German Uplands. From these land masses sediments washed into the slowly sinking shallow sea over millions of years thus forming a thick bed of rock unit with a thickness of up to 14 kilometres, which geologists call the Moselle Trough (''Moseltrog''). Subsequently, these deposits were solidified through folding, pressure and heat into rock masses of varying stability (cleavage takes place at 250°–400 °C, silicic acid, i.e.quartz, can be mobilised at 300 °C). Most of this development took place in the
Carboniferous period, 350 million years ago, when the
Rhenish Massif was uplifted and folded.
The shaping of the present Moselle landscape began in the
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago.
The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
period. The water of the later Moselle initially washed through a wide, flat valley in a still relatively gently rolling hill country. In the last 500,000 years the Rhenish Massif continued to be uplifted, so that the Moselle cut deeply into the rock masses.
Until the middle of the 20th century, the settlement of this cultural landscape of small, closely built villages surrounded by orchards and gardens and terraced vineyards, only changed slowly. Today many of the former orchard fields lie fallow or have fallen victim to development as villages have grown, to industrial estates and roads, but also large-scale, consolidated vineyards. On the hillsides many old terrace walls have been demolished and levelled in order to simplify farming and construct farm tracks. The impression of a historically evolved, terraced, cultural landscape is thus quite a rare sight in several sections of the valley. With the aid of predominantly publicly funded job creation schemes, overgrown terraces that had run wild have had their vegetation removed in several places in order to preserve the picture of a cultural landscape created by man as well as the biotope of very sunny terraces. The digging up and removal of vines from abandoned sites is also required in order to prevent the spread of plant diseases such as
grape black rot or
phylloxera.
Abandoned vineyards are a consequence of the structural changes in viticulture, whereby small businesses, especially those which only marketed
cask wine
Boxed wine (cask wine) is wine sold in a bag inside a box. The box is made of cardboard or corrugated fiberboard, which supports a plastic bladder filled with wine. The wine flows out from a plastic push-release valve.
History
The process fo ...
, are closed on economic grounds or as a result of a lack of successors or, where vineyards on steep slopes are abandoned in favour of only gently sloping and consolidated sites.
From 1999 to 2009 the area of steep hillside being used for viticulture reduced from 998 ha to 764 ha. By contrast, the recultivation of older sites, that as early as the Napoleonic and royal Prussian eras were valued and mapped due to their above-average land prices. Many of these sites are stand out due to the unusual stock of vines and wider terraces; instead of the closely spaced individual stakes with the traditional curvature, new vines are increasingly trained using
espalier
Espalier ( or ) is the horticultural and ancient agricultural practice of controlling woody plant growth for the production of fruit, by pruning and tying branches to a frame. Plants are frequently shaped in formal patterns, flat against a struct ...
wires and are spaced more widely apart. In the ''Moselweisser Hamm'' area, shortly before Koblenz, the recultivation and terracing of old vineyards was carried out using sloping, grassed embankments instead of stone walls. (Fig. 11).
Villages with extensive vineyards are, in the county of
Cochem-Zell
Cochem-Zell (German: ''Landkreis Cochem-Zell'') is a district (''Kreis'') in the north-west of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are Mayen-Koblenz, Rhein-Hunsrück, Bernkastel-Wittlich, and Vulkaneifel.
History
In 1816 the d ...
:
Pünderich,
Briedel,
Kaimt,
Merl,
St. Aldegund,
Neef,
Bremm,
Eller,
Ediger,
Senheim
Senheim is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Cochem, whose sea ...
,
Bruttig-Fankel
Bruttig-Fankel is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Coche ...
,
Ellenz-Poltersdorf,
Ernst
Ernst is both a surname and a given name, the German, Dutch, and Scandinavian form of Ernest. Notable people with the name include:
Surname
* Adolf Ernst (1832–1899) German botanist known by the author abbreviation "Ernst"
* Anton Ernst (1975-) ...
,
Valwig
Valwig is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Cochem, whose seat ...
,
Klotten
Klotten is a winemaking centre and an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeind ...
,
Pommern
Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...
,
Treis-Karden
Treis-Karden is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It was the seat of the former like-named ''Verba ...
,
Müden and
Moselkern
Moselkern is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Cochem.
Geogra ...
.
In
Mayen-Koblenz
Mayen-Koblenz is a district (''Kreis'') in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from north clockwise) Ahrweiler, Neuwied, Westerwaldkreis, district-free Koblenz, Rhein-Lahn, Rhein-Hunsrück, Cochem-Zell, and V ...
:
Hatzenport,
Alken,
Lehmen
Lehmen is a municipality in the district of Mayen-Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Euro ...
,
Niederfell,
Kobern-Gondorf and
Winningen.
Lay,
Moselweiss and
Güls are within the municipal area of Koblenz.
The geographical term, Lower Moselle, covers the areas known for tourism reasons as ''Zeller Land'' (region of the collective municipality of
Zell Zell may refer to:
Places Austria
* Zell am See, in Salzburg state
* Zell am Ziller, in Tyrol
* Zell, Carinthia, in Carinthia
* in Upper Austria:
** Bad Zell
** Zell am Moos
** Zell an der Pram
** Zell am Pettenfirst
Germany
* Zell im Fichtelg ...
between
Pünderich and
Neef including the villages on the
Hunsrück), and ''Ferienland Cochem'' ("Cochem Holiday Country"), the region of the collective municipality of
Cochem
Cochem is the seat of and the biggest town in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With just over 5,000 inhabitants, Cochem falls just behind Kusel, in the Kusel district, as Germany's second smallest district seat. Since 7 J ...
) between
Bremm and
Klotten
Klotten is a winemaking centre and an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeind ...
.
The
Calmont vineyard in Bremm and Eller (the steepest in Europe), the Valwiger ''Herrenberg'' and the Kobern-Winninger ''Uhlen'' etc. are among the steepest terraced vineyards on the Moselle. In 2003, the Association of German Fine and Quality Wines (''Verband Deutscher Prädikats- und Qualitätsweingüter'', VDP), following the vineyard assessments of the Vineyard Map for the Province of Koblenz of 1897 (''Weinbaukarte für den Regierungsbezirk Koblenz von 1897''), assessed specific plots in the areas of ''Marienburg'' and ''Nonnenberg'' in Pünderich, ''Kirchberg'' and ''Stolzenberg'' in Hatzenport and
''Uhlen'' and ''Röttgen'' in Winningen as "First Class". The classification is only carried out for those vineyards that are managed by members of the Vdp. Other sites are not assessed by the Vdp.
The most popular grape variety grown in the Lower Moselle is the
Riesling
Riesling (, ; ) is a white grape variety that originated in the Rhine region. Riesling is an aromatic grape variety displaying flowery, almost perfumed, aromas as well as high acidity. It is used to make dry, semi-sweet, sweet, and sparkling wh ...
with 59.7% of the total. It is followed by the Pinot Blanc (12.6%) and the Pinot Noir (5.5%), some way behind, but on the increase.
The landscape with the terraced vineyards on extremely steep slopes on the valley sides of the Moselle has been referred to since the end of the 20th century as the ''Terrassenmosel'' (lit.: "Terrace Moselle"), a wine industry and tourist label. It was introduced by the Winningen vintner, Winzer Reinhard Löwenstein. This description caught on due to the features of the countryside with its very steep vineyards, a unique element even when compared with other regions, e.g. the neighbouring
Middle Moselle. Both tourist and wine marketing organisations use the term ''Terrassenmosel'' instead of ''Untermosel'' ("Lower Moselle") for their own identity and manufacturing purposes.
File:StolzenbergIMG 5530.JPG, 10. Managed terraces next to fallow ones in especially steep and small plots: ''Hatzenporter Stolzenberg''
File:MoselweisserHammIMG 5490.jpg, 11. New terraces and diagonally running planting on espalier wires: ''Moselweisser Hamm''
File:HerrenbergIMG 5480.jpg, 12. New plantings on the old steep hillside: ''Valwiger Herrenberg''
File:Elzhofberg.jpg, 13. Without the monorack railway the old steep locations would not have been recultivated: ''Ediger Elzhofberg''
File:Elzig.jpg, 13a. Several monorack railways on steep slopes near ''Ediger-Eller''.
File:VerbuschtIMG 5500.jpg, 14. Abandoned since the mid-20th century: ''Gondorfer Fuchshöhle'' in a side valley of the Moselle near Kobern-Gondorf.
Development of terracing on the Lower Moselle
![Kahllay Neumauer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Kahllay_Neumauer.JPEG)
In the late 1970s, archaeologists discovered the first evidence of possible Roman terracing on the hillsides of the Moselle valley:
Land consolidation
Land consolidation is a planned readjustment and rearrangement of fragmented land parcels and their ownership. It is usually applied to form larger and more rational land holdings. Land consolidation can be used to improve rural infrastructure and ...
and the laying out of new farm tracks in vineyards on the Middle Moselle and the upper Lower Moselle exposed the foundations of ancient Celtic houses at the foot of the hillsides. The archaeological sites on the steep hillsides still being managed today could therefore be viewed as evidence of Roman terracing on these slopes in the 3rd century AD.
No such finds were made between Cochem and Koblenz. The reason for that could be – despite much evidence of
Gallo-Roman
Gallo-Roman culture was a consequence of the Romanization of Gauls under the rule of the Roman Empire. It was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman culture, language, morals and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context ...
settlement – a possibly lower level of population, but also the construction of railways and roads in the late 19th century meant that the many vineyards at the foot of old hillside sites in e. g. Hatzenport, Karden, Kobern or Winningen were swept away; possible clues for ancient Celtic sites could thus have been lost without anyone realising. For the late 6th century AD, however, there are written accounts of the early cultivation of steep hillsides for winegrowing in a record of a journey on the Moselle by the ancient writer,
Venantius Fortunatus: ''… where leafy vineyards soar up to bare hill tops / and rich shady leaves cover the dry gravel / here the harvest collects the coloured grapes of the vintners / even on the rocky slope he picks the fruit''.
The demise of Roman civilisation and changes in population during the
Migration Period probably left viticulture on the Lower Moselle largely undisturbed. Laws passed by the Frankish kings protected the old established winemakers. For example, there were islands of settlement here until the
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended around AD 150 ...
in which
Moselle Roman was spoken instead of a Frankish language. The still commonly used dialect word for a vineyard terrace - ''Chur'' or ''Kuur'' (plural: ''Chuer, Kuure''), derived from ''cura'' (Latin for "care") or ''chorus'' (Latin for the raised altar area of a church).
From the 9th century there is a rich record of viniculture for almost all villages on the Lower Moselle. (e. g. Ediger in the year 766, Kobern in 817, Bruttig in 898). Many vineyards were probably still on the level or lower hillsides. The High Middle Ages was the epoch when manual labourers began to build stable terrace walls - based on skills learned in constructing castles in challenging engineering situations on rocky ridges and above steep precipices. The terrace walls were probably mainly of
dry stone
Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction m ...
construction because the amount of mortar required for the irregular rubble stone used would just have been too expensive. Around 30 per cent of the construction costs were estimated by Archbishop Balduin to have been consumed by the firing and transport of the necessary lime for mortar and plaster of his castles in the Middle Rhine-Lower Moselle area. (figs. 16 and 17).
![SchildmauerIMG 5497](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/SchildmauerIMG_5497.jpg)
The rise in population in the Middle Ages, the demand of the trading centres of Cologne, present-day Belgium and the Netherlands and the, compared with today, high per-capita consumption of wine must have led to an expansion of the winegrowing areas and associated terracing needed. In deeds of ownership and
enfeoffment
In the Middle Ages, especially under the European feudal system, feoffment or enfeoffment was the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service. This mechanism was later used to avoid restrictions on the passage of ti ...
of the time there are even sites managed today that could have been terraced as early as the 12th century. ' ("steep slopes produce better wine") was an adage recorded in a farming guide of the 14th century. ''Gebirge'' or ''Gepirg'' was the name given to steep locations on the valley sides until the 19th century. Phases of closure, abandonment and ruination of terraces followed plagues, war or climatic changes.
In the late 19th century the terracing of valley sides along the Lower Moselle – occasionally almost to the hilltops – probably reached its greatest extent. The successive terracing uphill also occurred especially in the
terroir
(, ; from ''terre'', "land") is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop's phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop's specific growth habitat. Collectively, these contex ...
s, which from the earliest times were known for highly sought after wines that commanded high prices. In order to produce greater quantities, terraces were also laid in the side valleys and on less favourable sites. Around 1880 the Province of Koblenz still named around 2,500 hectares of vineyard land, mainly on steep hillsides.
From the mid-20th century production on the terraced vineyards of the steep hillsides of the Lower Moselle stagnated. The sites that were difficult to access and could only be managed by hand became overgrown and scrubby; many walls collapsed. In the 1960s and 1970s the smaller, less steep areas began to be consolidated into larger vineyards. This enabled them to be farmed more economically using machines, thus reducing the manpower needed and the cost. However, it meant the levelling of many, formerly terraced slopes and the demolition of many vineyard walls that were important for the ecology and the appearance of the countryside (Figs.30-33).
Aid from the public sector, funding from national and European budgets, and in particular the installation of monorack railways developed in Switzerland for steep slopes, that simplified the mechanical transport of men and materials, are now preventing some sites from falling into decay. (Figs. 13 and 13a).
Shape and significance of vineyard terraces
![Terrassenmauer Grub](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Terrassenmauer_Grub.jpg)
The advantages of slope terracing to increase the area available for cultivation were mentioned in ancient Roman agricultural instruction books (e.g. Junius Moderatus Columella around 60 AD in ''De re rustica'').
A description of terrace building on the Moselle has been handed down by a Baden oenologist from the 19th century, describing a technique that was probably used even in Roman times: ''"Because all hillsides are rocky by nature and there is little space for building in the open areas between the rocks, the whole terrace has to be dug out to the specified depth. To do this, rocks are broken off and split; those pieces that are not left to weather and break up in the open air, become stones used for the terraces (Figs. 18 and 19). Thus one terrace is formed around another until the entire plot is created."''
High terrace walls are often mortared for better stability. Today, new walls are built for landscape conservation reasons of stone from local quarries. Wall depths and foundations are based on the planned height. Walls two metres high are - if not on bedrock - built on very large stones, or on a concrete foundation of 100 cm × 60 cm depth and height. An uphill oriented gradient to help stabilise the wall can be achieved by angled construction, or the stacking of stones that are repeatedly set back from the bottom upwards. The stones are set alternately 2 to 1 and 1 to 2 and each lies on at least 3 points of its surface. For one cubic metre of wall around two tons of stone has to be used.
The terraces are, in addition to their agricultural engineering significance, examples of great cultural historical value, their organisation and often masterful architecture witnessing as far back as the Middle Ages. The small scale structure of the plots forms protective barriers against plant disease and provides habitats for a variety of warmth-loving flora and fauna. The
Apollo butterfly, the
green lizard
The European green lizard (''Lacerta viridis'') is a large lizard distributed across European midlatitudes from Slovenia and eastern Austria to as far east as the Black Sea coasts of Ukraine and Turkey. It is often seen sunning on rocks or lawns, ...
, the
wallflower
''Erysimum'', or wallflower, is a genus of flowering plants in the cabbage family, Brassicaceae. It includes more than 150 species, both popular garden plants and many wild forms. The genus ''Cheiranthus'' is sometimes included here in whole o ...
and
rock bunting
The rock bunting (''Emberiza cia'') is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae.
The genus name ''Emberiza'' is from Old German ''Embritz'', a bunting. T ...
are only the best known representatives of the ecosystem of the Terraced Moselle that have been recorded in the case studies of small animals and plants of the region.
[Annette and Bodo Müller: ''Modelluntersuchung über die Bedeutung von Weinbergsmauern in Niederfell und Winningen für den Arten- und Biotopenschutz''. Mannheim-Ehringshausen, 1985]
Terrace wall "images"
Strikingly carefully built and stable walls are referred to as a "beautiful mural" (''schönen Mauerbild''). The building of a vineyard wall is today, especially in the larger wineries, carried out by specialist stonemasons. Until the mid-20th century, when the Lower Moselle winegrowing holdings were mostly run by small family farms, each vintner had to be able to construct a wall himself and, in particular, to carry out the repair of collapsed sections of wall.
File:Kreismauer.JPEG, 20. Built in a circle for greater terrace stability. ''Niederfeller Kahllay''
File:Solobogen.JPEG, 21. Very old curved section in a dry stone wall. ''Koberner Weissenberg''
File:Nettetal2IMG 5470.jpg, 22. Vertical! Stone section in a terrace of the old vineyard ''In der Mark''. Trimbs in the Nette valley
File:Bischofsteinmauer.JPEG, 23. Ideal example of a dry stone wall. Built with stone broken on the spot. ''Hatzenporter Burg Bischofsteiner''
File:Lehmen4IMG 0021.jpg, 24. Solidly built wing wall. ''Lehmener Ausoniusstein''
From old terraces and plantings to present-day recultivation
The ''Hatzenporter Kirchberg'' is an example of the changes in viticulture on the steep slopes with their old terraces (Figs. 30–33). Until the middle of the 20th century the hillsides of the village were largely planted and farmed by a large number of vintners. At the end of the century the number of vintners in Hatzenport and the plots tended by them had dropped sharply. An amalgamation of the plots, new tracks across the hillside and the abandonment of small terraces in higher locations enabled planting based on economical methods of cultivation.
File:H'port1950.JPEG, 30. In the 1950s: planted terraces over the entire hillside. ''Hatzenporter Kirchberg''
File:Kirchberg1990.jpg, 31. Around 1990: The ''Kirchberg'' with many abandoned terraces
File:Kirchberg1994.jpg, 32. Around 1995: a new and double width track facilitates vehicles and the use of technical machines
File:Kirchberg2010.jpg, 33. Since 2003 the ''Kirchberg'' has been classified as "first class"
See also
*
Middle Moselle
*
Upper Moselle
The Upper Moselle (german: Obermosel) is the section of the River Moselle, 45 kilometres long, that runs from the Franco-German-Luxembourg tripoint near Perl to its confluence with the Saar near Konz shortly before Trier. From the tripoint to its ...
References
Literature
* Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier: ''2000 Jahre Weinkultur an Mosel-Saar-Ruwer.'' Ausstellungskatalog, Trier, 1987.
* Karl-Josef Gilles: ''Bacchus und Sucellus.'' Briedel, 1999, .
* Franz Dötsch, Dieter Rogge: ''Weinbergsmauern in Steillagen – Geschichte, Formen und Bedeutung für die Untermosellandschaft.'' Kobern-Gondorf, 2002, .
* Joachim Krieger: ''Terrassenkultur an der Untermosel.'' Neuwied, 2003, .
* H. Cüppers, K.-H. Faas, W. Stöhr: ''Mosel-Saar-Ruwer.'' Stuttgart 1981, .
* Reinhard Löwenstein: ''Vom Öchsle zum Terroir.'' In: ''
FAZ'', 7 October 2003.
* Gesellschaft für die Geschichte des Weins e. V. ''Schriftenreihe zur Weingeschichte'', Wiesbaden
External links
Information on the Cochem regionInformation on the Zeller Landfrom the TV series ''Bilderbuch Deutschland'' by
ARD.
Genaue Umrisse der Einzellagen
{{coord missing, Rhineland-Palatinate
Landscapes of Rhineland-Palatinate
Economy of Rhineland-Palatinate
Moselle
Viticulture
Valleys of Rhineland-Palatinate