The cobbled stone cellars, built in 1177 by Cistercian monks, are cool and dark, lined, now as then, with 1,000-litre barrels made from dark-brown German oak. Closed off from the sun for centuries, these silent, arching caverns form the heart of the Mönchhof (monks' house) riesling winery in the village of Ürzig, purchased from Napoleon by the Eymael family in 1804. They have carefully nurtured it ever since.
But standing outside the cellar entrance, in front of rows of grape-heavy vines that rise vertiginously above him from the green-yellow banks of the Mosel, the estate's current owner, Robert Eymael, was more concerned with the future than the past. "Germans are not ready for change. They don't like change in general. It's the opposite of Obama," he said. "Germans want an easy life softened with plenty of fabric conditioner and six weeks' holiday a year. The result will be the same as we have now."
Eymael was referring to tomorrow's federal elections that pit Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) against the Social Democrats (SPD), led by the foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. For the last four years, the two parties have been uneasy partners in a "grand coalition". Now they are fighting for primacy, each hoping to form a government with the support of smaller parties such as the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP), the Greens, or even the much-ostracised Left party.
Dishonest politicians
Final pre-election polls suggest Merkel might just win enough votes to form a centre-right government with the FDP – but another uncomfortable CDU-SPD stitch-up is equally possible. Eymael hopes the outcome will generate the decisive leadership Germany needs at a time of economic crisis.
"We cannot afford to continue in this way. The public debt is growing fast, but the politicians are not honest with us. The truth will come out after the election, but not before," he said. German voters were not being offered clear choices - but neither did they want to face up to the challenges threatening their largely comfortable existence.
Change is a key issue in the conservative, tradition-bound Mosel valley, home to 5,000 vineyards in Germany's leading wine-producing state of Rhineland-Palatinate - as it is for the country as a whole. Growers say low-end barrel prices have fallen to almost unsustainable levels, while export demand for higher quality riesling in the UK and US has dropped. Their concerns are reflected nationally. The recession, a changing social order, environmental worries such as future nuclear energy policy, and a shifting perspective on Afghanistan and other international issues are all straining the politics-as-usual approach.
"This is probably the most important election of my lifetime," said Tom Drieseberg, of the Wegeler winery, producer of the world-famous Bernkasteler Doctor Riesling, which retails at £45 a bottle. "Public spending is expanding and the real reallocation of funds is not up-down or vice-versa, it's not from rich to poor. It's from the people to the government. The next generations will have to pay the price. I am privileged to have been brought up in this system. I am 58. I have never known war, I have never been hungry. But we have to change the way we do things in this country."
Drieseberg said he hoped the free-market FDP would win outright, but added: "Anything would be better than continuing with two big, self-satisfied parties happily spending the money of our children and grand-children."
Beneath the sparkling chandeliers, coats of arms and high ceilings of Kloster Machern, near the studiously picturesque medieval village of Bernkastel, Matthias Knebel has joined a wine-tasting organised by the local growers' association. The participants hold their glasses to the light, swirl the wine around, sniff, then slurp delicately, making a burbling, bubbling noise with their tongues. Then they spit the precious liquid into a pot and try another bottle.
"I don't understand why people say there is no choice between the parties. I don't think they are paying attention," Knebel said. "The private sector produces 80% of tax revenue. The government has to make it easier for companies to create new business and jobs. But the SPD's main idea is to increase the minimum wage. This is not affordable for me. In fact it's ridiculous."
Knebel said that like Germany as a whole, the Mosel valley was changing despite itself. Its economy was built around family businesses but some young people did not want to stay, preferring to study or earn higher wages in the cities. The population was ageing, there were fewer children, there was no new industry.
"I would be frightened about what would happen if there was no viticulture and tourism. There would be no jobs, the valley would die," Knebel said. But he believed the wineries' long-term prospects were favourable as long as they concentrated on high quality and built on the good name they had established since the bad old days of the 1970s when cheap, sweet German white wine sent a whole generation of tipplers heading for Spain, Chile and Australia.
Although the Rhine-Palatinate is an SPD-controlled state, posters portraying a smiling Merkel predominate in the Mosel villages. "Wir haben die Kraft" (we have the power), they say. And according to Knut Aufermann, a sound artist living in Ürzig, holding on to power is all the chancellor is interested in. To voters afraid of change, Merkel was the perfect candidate, he said.
"Merkel stands for no change at all. She does not say anything," Aufermann said. "There is fear everywhere about economic security, people are afraid of falling through the cracks and losing their status. It's outrageous what happened with the banks, but no one is asking, 'who allowed this to happen?' Maybe there are a few protests in Berlin or Hamburg, but in most of the country they keep quiet. I call it the ostrich strategy."
Political apathy, or a disinclination to rock the boat, is undermining a campaign, backed by Aufermann, to stop the building of a huge motorway bridge across the Mosel valley – a plan that crudely symbolises the challenges facing the area. Known as the Hochmoselübergang (the high Mosel flyover), the bridge will be about 150 metres high and more than a mile long, and will dwarf the picture-book villages and Gothic church spires below it. It will be visible for miles around.
Aufermann said the bridge and its link roads would be an ecological catastrophe, disrupting water supplies to some of the Mosel's best-known vineyards and causing air and noise pollution. Its main purpose, he added, was to serve the Ryanair hub at Frankfurt-Hahn regional airport and satisfy the grandiose ambitions of local bureaucrats, but there was insufficient traffic to justify it.
Knife in the heart
Rudolf Trossen, the valley's only bio- dynamic winegrower and producer of the noted Schieferblume (slate flower) riesling, said the bridge was "a knife in the heart of the Mosel". But at present, the €260m plan is going ahead, thanks in part to the indifference or collusion of local and national politicians.
Pouring out generous samples of his various concoctions at a comfortable restaurant off a quiet 13th century square in Bernkastel, Erni Loosen of the long-established Dr Loosen winery summed up the national mood on election eve: most people knew things had to change, but didn't really want them to. If they could, they preferred to avoid the issues.
"I'm 100% certain it will be another CDU-SPD coalition – 100% certain," Loosen said. "The reason is simple. We know nothing will happen if it stays the same." So why not have another glass?
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