Mosel

The Mosel is about 8,700 hectares, much of it on slopes too steep for machinery. Its collectible tier is tiny — the Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese of Egon Müller, J.J. Prüm, Fritz Haag and a few others — and production of the top wines is measured in hundreds of half-bottles. Labour cost per hectare is the highest of any region on this site.

Economics in brief

The Deutsches Weininstitut reports that steep-slope viticulture costs several times flat-land viticulture per hectare; many marginal sites have been abandoned since the 1980s while the great sites (Scharzhofberg, Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr) have appreciated. At the top, a Trockenbeerenauslese from Egon Müller can be the most expensive white wine sold at auction in a given year, from a production of a few hundred bottles.