Elbling

Elbling is one of the oldest white grapes still cultivated in Germany — an ancient, ferociously high-acid Vitis vinifera variety now clinging to the steep Devonian-slate slopes of the Upper Mosel, on the border between Germany and Luxembourg. In Roman times it was among the most widely planted vines north of the Alps and, for centuries, the everyday white of the whole Mosel; today its footprint is small and shrinking, prized for light-bodied, bone-dry, neutral wines built on searing acidity, a faint appley-lemony fruit and a distinctly stony, mineral bite. Much of it goes into brisk still wine and, above all, into sparkling Sekt, where its racy acidity is an asset. At its best from old vines on the shell-limestone of the Obermosel and Luxembourg's Moselle, it is a lean, saline, almost austere wine of real historical pedigree.