Sixty estates in a slate-mining village: the Feller Maximiner Weinspektakel

For my money, this may be one of the best-value wine tastings in Germany — and somehow it remains remarkably little known outside the region. Visited: March 28, 2026 Where: Fell, Mosel Region: Mosel Fell is a village of roughly 2,300 people tucked into a side valley just downstream from Trier. It has a church, a handful of streets and vineyards climbing the surrounding slopes, including the historic Feller Maximiner Burgberg, whose name reaches back to the Benedictine abbey of St. Maximin in Trier. It also has slate. Lots of it. Slate mining shaped the village for generations, with the last mine in Fell operating into the late 1970s. Today, part of that history survives as the Besucherbergwerk Fell, where you can walk underground through the old workings — including enough stairs to remind you that miners were apparently much fitter than the rest of us. The village calls itself die Heimat von Stein und Wein — the home of stone and wine — and the festival brochure welcomes visitors with the old mining greeting Glück auf. Then, once a year in March, Fell takes more than sixty wineries and over five hundred wines and somehow squeezes them into its halls, school buildings and cellars. And charges surprisingly little to get in.

What it actually is

The Feller Maximiner Weinspektakel is organized by the local wine association, Feller Maximiner Wein e.V. It isn’t a trade-only tasting, and it certainly doesn’t feel like some polished tourism production dreamt up in a conference room. It is a public wine festival run by a village association that has somehow convinced an almost ridiculous number of very good producers to show up. The festival’s own description probably says it best: vom Garagenwinzer bis zum Kultbetrieb von Weltruf From the garage winemaker to the cult estate of international renown. And yes, both really are there — pouring wine in the same rooms for people who paid the same admission price. For 2026, the program included:

• Mythos Van Volxem, a masterclass with Roman Niewodniczanski presenting the estate himself.
• Legenden der Mosel, a four-hour Saturday session featuring Schloss Lieser, Nik Weis, Selbach-Oster, Haart, Peter Lauer, F. J. Regnery, Lörsch and von Othegraven.
• An expanded Schaumweinlounge, mixing Champagne and Prosecco alongside German Winzersekt and Crémant.
• A new section devoted to the Terrassenmosel, Obermosel and Saar, along with alcohol-free wines and sparkling wines from the DLR Mosel.
• A farmers’ and craft market.
• Old tractors, classic vehicles, Piaggio Apes and even a grape harvester.
• And, because apparently sixty wineries and five hundred wines were not enough entertainment, a twenty-piece big band on Sunday afternoon.

There was also a Sunday event called Riesling in the Dark, described as a Bänkelsängertour — essentially a roaming ballad-singer’s procession. We skipped it. Reading the description again, that may have been a mistake.

Why it is worth the trip

There are two big reasons. The first is simple arithmetic. Put sixty-plus estates in one village and suddenly you can taste your way across the Mosel, Saar, Ruwer, Terrassenmosel and Obermosel in a single afternoon. Trying to visit all of these producers individually would require several days, a car and a travel plan that would start to look suspiciously like military logistics. Here, they come to you. Even better, several producers were pouring older bottles. Haart, for example, had a 2011 Domherr Spätlese open. A fifteen-year-old Piesport Spätlese. At a village wine festival. This is the sort of thing that gets my attention. The second reason is Kabinett. For my money, Kabinett may be the Mosel’s most distinctive category. It is certainly not something I think of merely as an entry-level wine. At its best, Kabinett gives you intensity without weight, sweetness balanced by acidity, and alcohol levels that occasionally make you wonder whether someone forgot to finish making the wine — right up until you taste it. The progression from Kabinett through Spätlese and Auslese also still feels unusually important here. You can taste the differences in ripeness, richness and style side by side, producer after producer. And many of the most memorable bottles of the day came in under nine percent alcohol. Which, after tasting your fiftieth wine, starts to feel like a very thoughtful German public-service program.

The list

These are the thirteen wines we photographed while making our way through the tasting:

Scores and full tasting notes will follow.

What happened next

Several of the wines from the Saar and its side valleys were good enough that they changed our plans for the following day. The biggest culprit was Stefan Müller’s Niedermenniger Sonnenberg Riesling Spätlese Alte Reben, from old vines. It was good enough that instead of sticking to the original itinerary, we spent Sunday driving through the Saar area: Stefan Müller in Krettnach. Cantzheim beneath the Altenberg in Kanzem. Van Volxem above Wiltingen. Willems-Willems in Oberemmel. That may be the best compliment you can give a wine at a tasting. It made us change the next day’s plans.

Practical notes

The Weinspektakel takes place over a weekend in late March. The easiest approach is to stay in Trier and arrange transportation rather than drive yourself. You are going to a festival with more than five hundred wines available. This does not feel like the moment to prove your commitment to German automotive engineering. Buy the tasting glass. Grab the brochure. Keep it with you. The brochure lists the producers and what they are pouring, which becomes increasingly useful once you’ve stopped pretending you are going to remember everything. Saturday is the day to target if your priority is the masterclasses and the Legenden der Mosel session, when many of the better-known producers are concentrated in one place. Sunday adds the market, vehicles, music and a slightly more festival-like atmosphere. Either way, arrive with some sort of plan. You will abandon it.

The thirteen worth writing down

More than five hundred wines were available. These are the thirteen bottles we actually stopped to photograph. That may not sound particularly scientific, but after several hours of tasting Mosel Riesling, photographic evidence becomes a perfectly reasonable form of record keeping. And yes, we somehow missed roughly 490 other wines. There is always next year.