Germany

Bernhard Huber, Spätburgunder Alte Reben, 2010

torsten — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 21:20:12 +0000

I haven't had much luck with my wine recently. For various reasons I haven't enjoyed much wine at home the past few years, so some bottles that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half years, some wines passed out of all knowledge. Or at least that's how Galadriel would have put it. Anyway, some wines spent probably a little too much time in London's tastiest wardrobe. The last few weeks I made it my mission to go through the aged wines in my possession and drink them. Sadly, I haven't had much success - until I opened this Pinot Noir from Baden that is.

A (belated) encounter with Cabernet Blanc - a unique wine from the Pfalz

torsten — Sat, 30 Mar 2019 12:12:08 +0000

A (belated) encounter with Cabernet Blanc - a unique wine from the Pfalz

The other night I was having some Cabernet Blanc with my homies and - Cabernet What, I hear you say? You heard correctly, the wine is called Cabernet Blanc, a grape variety that is grown by just a few vintners in central and western Europe. The specimen whose label you see below comes from the Pfalz, one of my favourite German wine regions.

It was produced by the Mosbacher family who have been making wine in the village of Forst for a hundred years now. Currently, they grow vines on some 20 hectares of land, with roughly 90% of the production dedicated to white wine, mostly Riesling. Cabernet Blanc makes up only about 1% of their overall production.

torsten Saturday, 30/03/2019

Gerhard Klein, Grüner Veltliner, Junge Reben, 2013

torsten — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 13:58:45 +0000

It's been a busy few months for me. Almost all of June I spent on the road, or at events in London. So to ease myself back into blogging I thought I write about a nice little wine, nothing extraordinarily expensive or with a long and complicated backstory. There is, after all, a place for those wines that are there just to be enjoyed. When I unscrewed Gerhard Klein's Grüner Veltliner I hoped it would be one of those quiet, enjoyable companions. And it was. With a little twist...

Schnaitmann, Fellbacher Lämmler, Lemberger GG, 2009

torsten — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 12:34:21 +0000

Schnaitmann, Fellbacher Lämmler, Lemberger GG, 2009

Württemberg is not one of the wine regions the average wine drinker will know much about; most likely they will not even have heard about it. Now, I could tell you a that it is a rather interesting area - a red wine making region dominated by a plethora of growers associations and rivers - but the main reason I like to drink wines made by the local tribe of the Swabians is that I was born there. In fact, as a child I played not far from Rainer Schnaitmann's Lämmler vineyard.

So every now and then I need to go back, to check what my homies are up to.

torsten Tuesday, 31/03/2015

German Gin, with Riesling? Ferdinand's Saar Dry Gin!

torsten — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 10:44:20 +0000

German Gin, with Riesling? Ferdinand's Saar Dry Gin!

It took me almost two decades to appreciate gin. In my early drinking years, it was one of two spirits that I would always decline, as more than a glass made me sick (the other being ouzo). And let's face it, what else would you do with spirits in your late teenage years than have more than a glass? In the following, vaguely wiser years I enjoyed wine and stayed away from spirits - until I moved to gin central: London. Not only did I learn to appreciate a good gin and tonic, in those dire pubs where you are stuck between the Scylla of tart Sauvignon Blanc and the Charybdis of offensively dull lager even a mediocre G&T is a life (although perhaps not liver) saver. Today's gin is of a different calibre though, and an unusual beast too: a dry gin made in Germany, and intriguingly it is infused with late harvest Riesling grapes from a first class vineyard! So when I was offered a tasting sample of "Ferdinand's Saar Dry Gin" I had to say yes, and I brought along a gin expert to help me taste it.

torsten Saturday, 01/11/2014

Karthäuserhof, Eitelsbacher Karthäuserhofberg, Riesling Spätlese, 2007

torsten — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 10:44:43 +0000

Karthäuserhof, Eitelsbacher Karthäuserhofberg, Riesling Spätlese, 2007

Drinking wine is expectation management. It is many other things too, and I would hope on most occasions the expectation management is invisible, but sometimes it can become centre stage when writing a wine review. If your expectations are low but the wine delivers, is there a risk you praise it too much? And if your expectations are very high, will you be led to write a review that compares the wine with your expectations instead of looking at it on its own merit? The above-pictured late harvest from the Mosel tributary Ruwer falls into one of these two categories for me, so approach with care.

torsten Sunday, 10/08/2014

Bernhard Huber, Müller-Thurgau Trocken, 2011

torsten — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 14:55:25 +0000

Bernhard Huber, Müller-Thurgau Trocken, 2011

Earlier this month, Bernhard Huber died. As the last few weeks have been very busy with work I am only now catching up with news from the wine world - and with news like this I almost wish I hadn't. While I have never met him in person I have appreciated his outstanding wines on more than one occasion, and I am only too aware of what he has done for the reputation of German wine, Pinot Noir in particular. Looking through my cellar, the only Huber wine left is a Müller-Thurgau, not quite the obvious choice, but it has to do for a toast to one of the greats of wine making.

torsten Saturday, 28/06/2014

Müller-Catoir, Riesling Großes Gewächs, Breumel in den Mauern, 2009

torsten — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 12:38:32 +0000

Not everyone may agree with the National Health Service's classification of nosebleeds as potentially 'frightening', but even tougher characters don't seem to consider them fun. Looking back at one or two childhood nosebleed experiences I am inclined to take sides with the NHS here - and yet a Riesling tasting like a nosebleed was probably the most interesting wine I encountered this year. Enter Müller-Catoir's 2009 Grand Cru Riesling "Breumel in den Mauern".

As you can see from the photo above there is a prominent "1" on the bottle, indicating that this wine comes from one of the most highly rated vineyards in Germany (at least according to the winemakers association VDP). Together with the designation as "Großes Gewächs" (great growth or grand cru) this is designed to inspire some awe - which is, one would hope, at least subtly different from nosebleed fright.

Peter Jakob Kühn, Pur Pur, 2005

torsten — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 21:02:25 +0000

Ever heard of Dunkelfelder? If not don't be alarmed - if I wasn't such a German wine nerd I probably had not heard of it either. It is a rare grape variety that doesn't have the best reputation, but it does have one of the coolest alternative names in wine classification: "Froelich V 4-4". Well, if you like to name your grapes after super weapons perhaps. Leaving unusual names aside, Dunkelfelder is one of the varieties that went into the 2005 vintage of "Pur Pur", and so eventually into my wine glass.

Is the Dunkelfelder wine a secret weapon or yet another of these German oddities we sometimes write about?

Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben, Erdener Treppchen, Riesling Auslese 1971

torsten — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 21:55:12 +0000

Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben, Erdener Treppchen, Riesling Auslese 1971

When the topic of really expensive wine comes up, my dad has a story to tell. Years ago, when he was working in a Michelin-decorated restaurant, one of the guests told him that he had made a good deal that day and now wanted to find out. To find out whether the most expensive wine on the menu was really worth it. So he asked my dad to bring that bottle and get his colleagues too so they all could taste the wine. A few minutes later a group of highly trained sommeliers and waiters clustered around the guest and sampled the wine - I think it was a Bordeaux - to conclude: nice, very nice in fact; but not nice enough that any of them would spend even remotely as much money on a bottle. Even so they were all happy, especially the guest as he now had found out what he always had wondered about.

Today I am embarking on a, somewhat, similar mission. Behold, and you will see the most expensive wine I have ever bought, a Riesling older than yours truly. And the question is: was it worth it?

torsten Monday, 31/03/2014