nice weather outside, fabulous wines inside...

On Sunday I was lucky to attend the VDP Weinbörse in Mainz, a wine fair, where many of Germany’s top winemakers presented their collections of the 2007 vintage.

And for those who didn’t read it yet, 2007 was a blast! The summer wasn’t too hot and rather dull, but then in autumn, nice weather held on throughout the harvest season permitting the grapes to ripe out comfortably. The pros’ say that this situation where the grapes have a lot of time to ripen is much better than a burning hot summer where the grapes ripe faster and might yield higher must-weights, but do not reach the right physiological ripeness due to water stress of the vines.

But are there also any flaws in 2007? I couldn’t find any. The only difficulty in this vintage is to find wines which stood out among all those delicacies. It’s much easier to detect the better wines in bad vintages, and I guess for a lot of winemakers less good vintages bear a bigger opportunity to distinguish oneself through intense work in the vineyards and talent in the cellar. So 2007 might be the year of the lucky wine buyer with sufficient quantities and excellent overall quality.

It is the least to say that those are some good auguries for visiting a vintage presentation. So I strolled through the fair, knowing that I only had time to try a few of these allegedly fantastic wines, and thus I visited the stands of some familiar winemakers and of some others I heard much about.

And I can only confirm, the big picture is certainly fantastic in Germany for 2007, and even at a smaller scale you can barely find disappointments. So rather than giving a detailed review (which I couldn’t do since I didn’t try enough of the wines) I decided to post some of my impressions, things I personally found noticeable.

First, while strolling through the Rheingau booths, I was really impressed with Künstlers’ 2007 vintage. Künstler creates a style of Riesling that only he can make, so mineral and fruity, and yet slim and elegant. And this vintage we really have a Künstler in perfection for me. All the wines have an incredible elegance while being so rich in minerals and texture. Wow!

Secondly I was thrilled to try the amazing Robert Weil TBA, with dazzling golden color, rich oily texture and feeling like an explosion of caramel and exotic fruits on your palate. The length is incredible and holds for minutes… The other wines of Robert Weil, I also found outstanding by the way.

Now that I mentioned Weil’s TBA, I also have to mention Schloss Johannisbergs’ which is a little lighter, but still of unbeatable intensity with caramel all over.

The wines of Josef Leitz came a little less on the fruit but instead were loaded with minerals and spiciness as usual. Some were a little more slender with finesse, some heavier with loads of power - all of them had nice mineral substance. The Berg Kaisersteinfels Alte Reben showed some wonderful creaminess on the palate as did also the Berg Rottland. I was even lucky to sneak a peek of the famous Goldkapsel: what a monument of power and minerality!

In the Pfalz, Christmann also showed up with an outstanding Riesling collection. What impressed me a lot there was the very good quality of the entry Riesling, so full rich and balanced, just yummy. Furthermore, the very luscious Königsbach “SC” might be a promising indication for the yet to come Idig GG.

Staying in the Pfalz, Knipsers’ Sauvignon Blanc, which has already been acclaimed by the press also received my blessings ;=). It’s a very clean wine with clear fruit, refreshing and 100% cat pee free. Of course, at Knipser estate one cannot overleap his reds, even if they had nothing to do with 2007, the youngest poured being a 2004. They’re convincing as usual, marrying finesse and power, but still very young with sharp tannins.

So back to the whites of 2007. I was running out of time and went on to Rheinhessen, but only tried very few wines there and missed out plenty of top producers. At Kühling Gillots’ booth I spotted one very interested Michel Bettane - I bet he also liked the Qvinterra Riesling, which has a vibrant texture, a certain spiciness and is all in all a luscious wine. At Heyl zu Herrnsheims’ the Rothschiefer was an equally good wine.

So that was it. The day just passed by too quickly and in the end just too many wines remained untasted. I missed out on entire regions like Saar, Baden, Nahe and only had a few tries of Mosel, Rheinhessen and Franken. But in the end the conviction that 2007 is a fantastic vintage is built up and pretty much cemented and hopefully there will be many more tastings over the next few months and years.

Schon wieder ein lesenswerter Beitrag in der New York Times. Eric Asimov, deren “Chief Wine Critic” findet immer wieder den richtigen Ansatz. In diesem Artikel über Kellertechnologien geht er insbesondere auf die Verwendung von Eichenchips ein. Er betont, dass Eichenchips zwar das Eichenaroma an den Wein geben können, jedoch aber nicht wie das Weinfass durch Gerbstoffe und Sauerstoff die Textur des Getränks veredeln könnten. Nur ein Weinfass könne das sogenannte „mouthfeel“ verändern.
Außerdem wirbt er für mehr Transparenz auf dem Weinetikett. Der Kunde solle wissen wie der jeweilige Winzer arbeitet. Werbungen der Weinindustrie mit idyllischen Landschaften und alten Weinfässern täuschen die Kunden zu oft über die tatsächliche industrielle Verarbeitung hinweg.

I liked this article about a tasting organized by Bouchard in Burgundy. Eric Asimov and several other lucky journalists were invited to taste very old wines from this famous wine producer, including some bottles from 1846, 1929 and 1939. Eric Asimov describes very well how these wines have surpassed history and how you might feel when having the opportunity to taste one of them.

So finally the end of year festivities are over. We had lots of fun and it was plenty of good food and good wine, and even more good wine and… tons of good wine actually. I kind of realised that in the December there weren’t many days were I didn’t have a glass of wine, and Christmas and New Year marked a peak in my personal wine consumption. So it wasn’t hard to find a good resolution for the New Year. I’ve decided to spend 20 days without drinking a drop of alcohol. So now I have 15 more days to go. Theoretically it’s not difficult to stay 20 days without a drop of wine, but it gets hard when you order a nice dish in a restaurant for example, or when friends have a drink. But on the other hand I’m not the only one who drank too much on New Year’s Eve. And after 20 days I’ll be a little proud and will really savour my first glass of wine in 2007. Sounds like a dignified start in a good year to me. So happy New Year to you too, my 5 loyal readers or so! Let’s drink some pretty good wine this year (in 15 days I mean)!

Eric Asimov von der New York Times hat mal wieder eine sehr interessante Verkostung erlebt. Diesmal hat er australischen Rieslingweinen auf den Zahn gefühlt, und den Stand der dortigen Stilentwicklung mit den klassischen, deutschen, österreichischen und französischen Rieslingen verglichen. Dabei fiel Ihm auf, dass die heutigen australischen Rieslinge viel „klassischer“ werden, also weniger wie südländische Fruchtbomben sondern eher in feiner Mineralik spielen wollen. Dabei erreichen Sie zwar noch nicht ganz die Vielschichtigkeit der europäischen Klassiker, aber die eingeschlagene Richtung stimmt auf jeden Fall. Nachzulesen hier.

The past Sunday, after one long year of waiting, we’ve been again at the wine cooperative in Mussbach in the Pfalz region for an early try of this year’s harvest. So early… that it isn’t even real wine we’re drinking but fermenting juice, which is called Federweisser in Germany.
The principle of this “harvesting event” at the cooperative is simple: one can bring its own food and sit on one of the plenty benches and tables provided by the coop. Then you can buy your Federweisser there, fresh from the press (or steel tanks). You can either use a glass or bring your own 3 or 5 litre container and let it fill if you don’t want to stand in line too often. Then you just sit down and enjoy your drink and food. At the same time then, you can overview the harvesting process and observe the wine growers driving by with their tractors and tumbrels and unloading their grapes into the huge press.
It is just a really nice and cheerful atmosphere and especially when it is such a sunny day and the whole place is packed. People are gazing at the neighbour’s table to see who brought the better Blutwurst (Blood sausage) or who made the better Zwiebelkuchen (Quiche) and here and there a group would start to sing old tunes about the good wine from the Pfalz.
Hopefully the sun won’t leave these next days, so we get the opportunity to come back before the end of the harvest.

Eric Asimov and his colleagues from the New York Times have tasted some 25 Pinot Noirs from „unusual“ places around the world, like Sancerre, Languedoc, Argentina or Rheingau in Germany. Actually these places don’t seem that unusual to me. Spätburgunder for example, as Pinot Noir is called in Germany, is a classic variety here since years. But I was rather happy that a Rheingau Pinot Noir, August Kesseler Spätburgunder 2003, was one of the favourites. I would recommend the New York Times’ team to try other German Pinots though, for example from the Ahr region were the terroir is ideal for this variety.

Here are some items I brought back from my journey in Greece: some local chocolate, some Merenda, the Greek counterpart to Nutella (Maybe I should write a post about some kind of chocolate cream blindtasting, I still have some luxury chocolate cream from Fauchon left), some Kalamata Olives of course which will go straight into my Horiatiki (Greek salad with tomatoes cucumber, onions, feta and of course olives); also a glass of orange strawberry marmalade and a glass of olive marmalade from a food shop in Nafplio. The orange strawberry marmalade tastes as bitter as it should. The olive marmalade tastes a little weird to my palate used to salty olive cream. Actually it tastes like a sweet tapenade. I won’t eat it for breakfast for sure! Finally a small box with saffron from Kozani (city in Northern Greece) which simply looks good and I will make good use of for sure.

befindet sich unter den Hügeln Moldawiens. Er wurde von deutschen Kriesgefangenen gegraben und beinhaltet etwa 2 millionen Flaschen Wein. Nachzulesen in einem Artikel von Spiegel Online.

Eine Traumkarriere: von der Schmuddelfilmdarstellerin zur erfolgreichen Winzerin.
Savanna Samson ist dies anscheinend mit Hilfe von Experten gelungen.
Die Darstellerin von "Der neue Teufel in Miss Jones" erntet dabei respektable Kritik, zum Beispiel vom Wein-Papst Robert Parker der Ihre Cuvée mit 90 bis 91 Punkten bewerten würde.
Nachzulesen auf spiegel online.