Opponents of a planned road bridge and motorway through some of the Mosel’s finest vineyards have made a last ditch appeal to the German Chancellor.

In an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel, local campaigners have called for work to be stopped on a 160-metre high 4-lane highway bridge across the Mosel near Bernkastel in Germany. All legal challenges have failed and now they are appealing for media support to lobby politicians.

Ernst Loosen, who has vineyard land which will run below the new motorway, told decanter.com ‘There can be the biggest protests and nothing will happen. The vineyards are not important to the government. The road is not important at all, it will only save a 20 minute journey.’

Forest land above top-rated vineyards of Urzig, Zeltlingen and Wehlen will be flattened to make way for the road. It is feared this will create major drainage problems and cause high levels of pollution.

However, Markus Berg, a winemaker at Weinhaus Burg-Schneider, based 10km from the bridge, said: ‘Nothing can be done about it now. But I’m happy about it because we will bring more people to the area which will help tourism.’

http://tinyurl.com/Merkel-contact

Written by Rebecca Gibb

Rebecca Gibb MW
Rebecca Gibb MW
Decanter Magazine & DWWA Judge

Rebecca Gibb MW is a wine journalist and editor who has also founded Bamboozled games, ‘the world’s first wine and spirit puzzle makers’. Having spent six years living in New Zealand, she has recently returned to her native north-east England. While in New Zealand, she became a Master of Wine, graduating top of her class and winning the Madame Bollinger medal for excellence in tasting. A former winner of both the UK’s young wine writer of the year and the Louis Roederer Emerging Wine Writer, her first book The Wines of New Zealand was published in 2018. She also runs wine events and has her own consultancy business The Drinks Project. She was a judge at the 2019 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA).