Zehnthof Luckert, Silvaner trocken, 2008

At the Wine Rambler, we have this ongoing love affair with the Silvaner grape. Today's Silvaner comes from the German wine region of Franken, the spiritual home of this grape variety.

This is a textbook Silvaner in the best sense of the word. You get earthy, grassy notes, almost smoky. There is apple, refreshing in the nose and well defined on the tongue. At its core the Silvaner is robust, but smooth round the edges with notable minerality.

It lays no claim to be an outstanding wine, but it really delivers and is just so very well balanced that it evaporated out of the bottle, almost before the dinner was finished.

If you look for a dry white wine as a food companion, for instance with white fish or asparagus, look no further.