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In 2009 for a short moment I was cool. You might have been too, without knowing it. Back then we had street cred - just by drinking Riesling. No, I am not insane, nor did I have too much Riesling tonight. In 2009 middle-class wine geeks had a moment of cool when Jay-Z put the following words into the mouths of millions: "I'm beasting off the Riesling!"

Twitter was full of references to Riesling, mostly from cool kids who sounded like they'd never before heard of it. Just one line, but much more effective than any marketing campaign - I have brought this up in every discussion on how to raise the profile of German wine since.

Around that time I did consider to take inspiration from Jay-Z and play around with video and perhaps music on the Wine Rambler to reach audiences that might never care about wine writing. Sadly or perhaps luckily, my musical talent is limited and co-Rambler Julian (who actually has some) refuses to even go near a video recording device. Three years later, Wines of Germany USA have, in a way, taken up my advice and produced what may be the world's first Riesling rap song: Must be Seduktion.

Those of you who have actually met at least one Wine Rambler may take amusement from picturing us as Dr Hans and Big Swanky. The rest of you should perhaps just open a bottle or two of Kabinett, join me in a "cheers" to our Riesling friends in the US and consider the all important question: "Where is ze girl with my spritzer?"

[Update] As the question has come up in social media (and in response to Alex's comment below) I would like to add that what I had in mind in terms of video for the Wine Rambler was only vaguely inspired by Jay-Z, would have looked very different from "Must be Seduktion" and would almost certainly not have involved me singing. I love to sing, I sing a lot, but I won't win any new audiences with it. If you are brave you might want to ask me sing you dubbed German theme songs of 1970s and 1980s cartoons, one manga in particular...