Every autumn thousands of wine cellars in the Mosel valley, Germany’s premier wine growing region, turn into magnificent sound installations. Freshly pressed grape juice starts fermenting in barrels and the escaping gas bubbles through glass u-pipes, each barrel at its own speed. Mobile Radio set up seven microphones in the wine cellar of bio-dynamic winemakers Rudolf & Rita Trossen to capture and broadcast live these fermentation sounds, documenting the work of yeast turning juice into wine over a period of 17 hours. The following edit is a recording of the activity in the cellar during the midnight hour on the 5th November 2013.
Many radio stations from the Radia Network broadcast the sounds live through the night (Radio Panik, Radio Zero, free109point9/WGXC, Kanal 103, Radio Campus, Radio Corax, Reboot.fm, Soundart Radio) or as an edit later on (Radio x, Orange 94.0, Resonance104.4fm, Radio One 91FM, Närradio). Even state public radio and television in Germany (SWR1, SWR4 and SWR TV) reported on what they dubbed the ‘bubble symphony’.
A special sacrifice was made by the fruit flies who added their sparks to the soundscape by visting the fly zapper.
Sarah and Knut alias Tonic Train provided a sonic intermezzo for the artwork of Kurt Müllers at the exhibition opening at the annual wine garden fest of the wine estate Rudolf & Rita Trossen.
The steles of Kurt Müllers. Photos: Tanja Brust
We staged Vinosonic 3 at the Weingartenfest of Rita and Rudolf Trossen. The flyer stated: “…für jeden Wein eine eigene Klangwelt…” (for each wine its own soundworld)
We borrowed the title (with permission) from the 2009 Chicago event
Vinosonic, where wines were matched with acousmatic pieces. Knut sent over a piece to be played there as it neatly coincided with our own plans to pair wine with sound.
In our events we play short improvised pieces for specific Mosel wines. We taste with the audience and that sets the mood for a short tribute to each wine. Then the winemaker Rudolf Trossen entertains the audience with tales about life, the universe and the wines. This time the audience complained that the music was too short…
Above photos by Yvonne Schwemer-Scheddin
The Mosel with its vineyards and a splendid table to play on by Aaron Scheuer, whose workshop can be seen directly across the river in Kinheim
In the wine hall there was an exhibition of paintings and objects from Eike Gall and various pieces of furniture made from wine barrels by Aaron of
Ragit
As this event was at the winery, we played only Trossen wines. These were:
2007 VON DER LAY Riesling Spätlese trocken
2011 TROSSEN ROT ZERO unfiltered and without sulphur
2004 PYRAMIDE Riesling Spätlese feinherb
2008 VON DER LAY Riesling Spätlese fruchtig
2006 VON DER LAY Riesling Spätlese fruchtig
Edible Landscapes
Knut offered to record 2 hours of wine fermentation in the cellars of biodynamic winemaker Rudolf Trossen in Kindel for broadcast on the Resonance 104.4 FM show Edible Landscapes produced by Richard Thomas. You can hear an extract of the wonderful bubbling
here
Recording and listening for the best blubs with Rudolf Trossen. Photograph of Sarah and Knut by
Oliver Brenneisen
