Mondeichen

"It sounded like sawing through stone!" Our cooper, Andreas Hösch, was afraid for his saw and had to reduce its speed drastically. The wood of moon oaks is incredibly hard. It has therefore been used since time immemorial wherever special durability is required. Experts assume that the beams of the 1000 year old half-timbered houses in southern Germany and Switzerland are made of moon wood. And there is even a 500 year old wine cellar made entirely of moon wood!

A few years ago we got to know the friendly family of the Count zu Eltz. Your castle - always rightly described as the most beautiful in Germany - is in our immediate neighborhood. Various vineyards and farms in our district were owned by the counts until Napoleon. And, as it should be for a stately castle, the Eltz is also lined with a forest full of beautiful German oaks. In the context of increasing xenophobia, they found their way from the Vukowar (now Croatia) to us on the Moselle as saplings almost 200 years ago. Now the trees are ripe. And together with our cooper, the lords of the castle, the forester and our cellar master, we were allowed to choose oaks to build our barrels! What a day! A great moment in our winemaking life!

It should be moonwood. According to old fathers custom, we therefore met with the woodcutters at the new moon dusk between Christmas Eve and the Three Wise Men for the impressive spectacle. According to the rule, the trees ripened in the forest for 14 days before they were moved and transported to the last log splitter still active in Germany for further processing. The logs were torn open and stacked to dry. After five patient years, the wood was so dry that the Hösch family could refine it into beautiful barrels. They are finally in our basement. And we look forward to the wines.