Stuart Pigott's Planet Wine

Read the Reflection to find out one of my Rieslings to live. Have you got one or more?

As you might have already guessed, I don’t do normal selfies. Instead, I point my camera in a mirror, in this case the mirror in the belly of the Riesling Whale, aka the retro-fitted 20ft shipping container that is the Riesling Road Trip’s mobile tasting room. The team and I have had a much needed quiet day in Charleston/SC before this evening’s event in the city, although far for me this was anything but R&R , because I had to write another piece for the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung where my weekly wine column appears (you have to buy the newspaper to read it, because it doesn’t go online). However, the Riesling Whale was packed up, see below, and is getting a well earned sleep until tonight’s event here in Charleston.

The response to our tasting yesterday evening at Edmunds Oast brew-pub on the edge of Charleston combined with that to the event in Savannah/GA convinces me that Riesling and the charming Southeast of the US are a marriage made in heaven. I’m amazed how at home I feel in this world, and feel rather stupid for not having taken this part of the country seriously before (for no good or bad reason). I’m therefore already working on plans to return here later in the year to do some events specifically for BEST WHITE WINE ON EARTH. The combination of relaxed, sophisticated and hedonistic at dinner in the Two Boroughs Larder on Coming Street in Charleston (www.towboroughslarder.com) yesterday evening was awesome. My spicy octopus was delicious with the dry 2012 Westhofener Riesling from Wittmann in Rheinhessen, and the 2011 Spätburgunder ‘Alte Reben’ from Bernhard Huber in Baden matched the steak perfectly. The café type ambiance was a daring move for a restaurant serving food of this quality, but it worked really well. Then I ended up drinking a glass of Malmsey at a place called Macintosh on King Street and had to hit the sack fast after that. Even when the mission is German Riesling & Co. 6 days on the road takes its toll!

PS a timetable of events around the publication of BEST WHITE WINE ON EARTH will be published here in about a week’s time, so stay tuned to this Riesling Station!

That piece of meat on my plate in the Olde Pink House in Savannah/GA is a pork shank with a pineapple sauce and it was as delicious as it is filling. It is also a near-perfect match with medium-sweet, but crisp Riesling Spätlese. Savannah is a beautiful and charming a city with Kabinett days, Spätlese nights and some perfect trocken moments. And it has real long Riesling Season. The only problem is that awareness of these important facts is still limited and here too the symptoms of Riesling Deprivation Syndrome (RDS) are sometimes painfully visible. As your Drinking  Adviser I recommend you to forget all those vitamin supplements and be wary of those hormone therapies that are being handed out like candy these days. Eat well, exercise regularly, think positive, but keep one eye open for problems and DRINK RIESLING! For further information see: www.drinkriesling.com

As you can see from this picture, last night next to the sidewalk outside the Olde Pink House we opened up the belly of our Riesling whale, the Riesling enthusiasts of Savannah entered it and enjoyed our back to back presentations of German Riesling at 10:30pm and 11:30pm. They seemed mightily surprised by the contrast of two excellent 2012 dry Rieslings from Rheinhessen (with 65,000 acres Germany’s largest winegrowing region), the sleek and crystalline Nackenheim from Gunerloch and the richly textural and ripe Westhofener from Wittman. Then we entered the Riesling Time Machine that was the combo of the lithe and effusively aromatic 2012 Ürziger Würzgarten Spätlese from Dr. Loosen in the Mosel followed by the broad and mellow 1992 Nussbrünnen Auslese from Schloss Schönborn in the Rheingau. They could taste exactly how five plus years of aging dry German Riesling out in the nicest possible way, even wines which taste honey-sweet in their youth turning into great wines for savory food (e.g. wild fowl and venison!) Several people pointed out that medium-dry wines like the regular 2012 Riesling from Prinz von Hessen in the Rheingau were ideal for that prototypical southern daily ritual, relaxed conversation on the porch. Further north we miss that and are probably suffer from another kind of deprivation syndrome…

Last night we met wine merchant Christian Depken, pictured left, and this morning we walked through Downtown Savannah to his Le Chai wine store (see: www.lechai.com). I’m not sure how many of the people of this genuinely fair town realize what a jewel they have in this store. Even in the context of New York or Berlin this would be a special place. The first thing is that it is so beautiful and it is so easy to shop there, because the bottles are displayed on table tops where they have room to breathe, rather than being crammed together on shelves like so many battery hens. This doesn’t look overly precious, much less is it tainted with that antiseptic feel of so many over-designed stores. Then there’s the enticing range of moderately-priced wines from France, Italy, Spain, Austria and most particularly Germany. Limiting himself to a few countries and excluding fancy wines with fancy prices help make Christian stand out, but additionally he’s really creative in his selections. For example, anyone who claims that they cannot find mature German Riesling in America, in contrast to Good Old Europe – often this is a mantra like that of Europe having the bigger and better history – need look no further. The entire stock is stored in a cool room that replicates cellar conditions, which must be unique in this part of the country. And the final clinching factor that makes this a truly great store is that it is all so personal, the range honestly expressing Christian’s own  passions. Thankfully, there seems to be nothing he seems more passionate about than Riesling. That made it hard for us to hit the road again in the direction of Charleston/SC, another city that’s new to me. Watch this Riesling Space!!!

I’m putting a brave face on it in this photo, but yesterday I suffered massive sensory overload and my nervous system came close to complete meltdown when Riesling Road Trip 2 visited the Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) then The Magic Kingdom in Disney World. “Everything here is a kind of optical illusion,” our driver Mike perceptively commented at KSC, which could obviously also be applied to Disney World. What does all this have to do with German Riesling? Well, KSC and Disney World are aspects of the contemporary American Dream and if America is to fully embrace Riesling (it doesn’t yet realize how close it is to doing that), then Americans will have to integrate Riesling dreaming into their existing dreaming.

The most striking thing about KSC was how much the visitor centre is a history museum. Not only Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, but also the Space Shuttle are all now clearly history. Since that program ended America has had no means of putting a man in space and is currently reliant on Russian technology to do that. “Failure is not an Option,” was one of NASA’s  slogans. Ouch! KSC tries to put a positive spin on this embarrassing sign of weakness. “The Space Shuttle program personifies what a great people can do, and provides a glimpse of the greatness that lies ahead,” stood in large letters on the wall right in front of me as I entered the exhibit centered around the Atlantis Space Shuttle. Sure, KSC is currently retooling for the next generation of space craft and the return to manned space flight by America. However, I don’t see anything that is currently in the planning that might generate a similar excitement to that I experienced as a child during the Apollo program. To this day the Saturn 5 moon rocket remains the most complex piece of technology ever constructed! And it was that excitement I re-experienced at the KSC. It reminded me of how Sean O’Keefe of Chateau Grand Traverse in Northern Michigan compared his Riesling exploration on the Old Mission Peninsula with the American space program of our childhood (we’re the same generation). That might seem an inappropriate comparison for German Riesling, because Riesling’s recorded history in Germany goes back to 1435, but if you look at how regions like Rheinhessen totally reinvented themselves during the last decade I think it is also an appropriate metaphor. Riesling winemakers in Germany are also reaching out for new worlds of aroma and flavor.

Our original plan was that we should have dinner in Cinderella’s Palace in The Magic Kingdom, but since they don’t serve alcoholic beverages and it is thus a Riesling-free zone (they do serve tea and coffee so it is not a stimulant-free zone!) we decided to shift our focus. That was fine by me, because coming from a country with real princesses I don’t feel the need to meet pseudo-princesses. Perhaps, that’s also why I found it bizarre that the street which leads to Cinderella’s Castle was called Main Street U.S.A. I never saw a main street in America which looked even vaguely like that collection of knock-offs of late 19th century European-style buildings. Why fantasize that Main Street U.S.A. could look like this piece of so very un-American history? Does that very American feeling of inadequacy about the nation’s history – Europe’s history typically being perceived as both older and better – lie behind this, or have I utterly failed to understand America?

Either way, I was knocked out  by the two rides I went on, ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ‘It’s a Small World’ which were like being in 3D realizations of Disney movies. ‘It’s a Small World’ swept me away, because it reminded me vividly of seeing ‘Fantasia’ as a small child in a huge movie theatre in London’s West End and being completely seduced by that fantasy world; the movie’s title says it all. German Riesling fits into that dimension of American Dreaming unexpectedly neatly. Let’s face it, Walt Disney’s Cinderella’s Castle is a knock off of Neuschwanstein in Bavaria that takes all the elements of that 19th century fantasy castle and pushes them to the limit. What other wine could Cinderella drink in that castle – assuming alcoholic beverages were allowed – but sweet Riesling Spotless from a real wine castle on the Rhine? I think the abbey of Kloster Eberbach in the Rheingau comes closest to an architectural match, in which case the wine would have to be from their monopoly Steinberg vineyard. Alternatively, Maximin Grünhaus in the Ruwer sub-region of the Mosel may look a bit different, but always struck me as being like a fairytale castle. On top of this, Riesling is the Cinderella of wine grapes and, as I wrote in BEST WHITE WINE ONE EARTH (#BWWOE), Cinderella is now going to the ball!
We were still talking about the downside of the experience this morning over breakfast, most notably how we all had to give Disney a fingerprint (right forefinger) before entering. Don’t get me wrong. I was happy to give the US government all my fingerprints in the cause of national security, but Disney? A corporation who’s raison d’être is profit maximization? I have nothing to hide, my credit-rating could hardly be better, I was never arrested much less charged with anything criminal in any country, but it still left a nasty aftertaste in my mouth. However, we’re now en route to Savannah/Georgia, a city I never visited before, but already heard so much about and I can’t wait to experience this piece of the Deep Riesling South.

Yes, ten thousand flamingos can’t be wrong. This picture shows that we are in complete agreement about the sparkling Riesling Brut from Theo Minges in Flemlingen/Pfalz. Just in case some of you didn’t see this and the images below on social media, I thought I should put them up here so you get an idea of what we on the Riesling Road Trip 2 have been up to the last couple of days.

I was seriously amazed by Miami-Wynwood, because I knew nothing about it before I stepped into Panther Coffee (highly recommended!) there. It was great that Paul Grieco knew his way around and even had a contact at Goldman Properties, the dynamo of the area’s self reinvention. Of course, both Paul and I are what the German call Dickköpfe, or big heads, and although we agree about Riesling and many of the other really important things in life we sometimes have heated discussions.

Many of the most beautiful things in Florida have to do with the special light here, which isn’t quite like anything else I’ver ever seen. Maybe I’d feel the same in Cuba, Jamaica or the Bahamas, but I’ve never been to any of those places so I can’t compare. The picture below is one of my sunrise pictures and was taken in Palm Beach in February during my first trip to the Sunshine State, but I could have taken it early this morning as I struggled to finish my newspaper column for next Sunday (in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, for those of you who read German).

Worth Avenue in West Palm Beach is a luxury goods and swanky restaurant bubble without obvious connection to the workaday world. I enjoy it for a short visit like ours, but what would it be like to be stuck in this Truman Show for the 1% for life? It could be extremely difficult to adjust too, even if I had the money to shop in stores like the one I’m standing in front of in the picture. Likewise, I enjoy all kinds of wines,  including some of the expensive hi-end reds, but a daily does of California Cult Cabernet would quickly jade my palate. Where is the refreshing light German Riesling?

Quite possibly within a few hours these pictures will look pretty tame, because our next stops are the Kennedy Space Centre followed by Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. That strikes me as an archetypal American combo, or is it just too much for one day?

PS last night at dinner the team learnt a new piece of vocabulary, which amused them very much. Maybe this could become a phenomenon like VWs use of the word Fahrvergnügen, or drinking pleasure? I therefore pass this on. Dickhäuter, literally the thick-skinned, is a collective term for elephants, rhinoceros and hippos. You pronounce it dick-hoy-ter.

We just left Miami-Wynwood where I took the above picture and a slew of other eye-popping images of street art. For me this one was particularly interesting, because it had multiple meanings, not least the fact that yesterday we left Key West, a place that considers itself some sort of paradise. Of course, the fact that Key West is the #RieslingRoadTrip paradise lost doesn’t cut any ice with Miami native, even amongst people like the crowd at last night’s Riesling & Co. dinner at The Cypress Room. This is an astonishing different restaurant from the Miami norm, and the crowd were clearly all fans of what I’m calling Alternative Miami, but some people might even consider Anti-Miami. They were in the best of moods and had the best of thirsts. Even before we sat down the Riesling Brut sparkler from von Bühl in the Pfalz – “like Champagne, but really dry” was a frequent positive comment – had persuaded a bunch of guests to let Paul Grieco tattoo them with some elegant and startling results, as my photos show.

The crowd the  enthusiastically emptied one Riesling (the Gelback feinherb from Schloss Johannisberg in the Rheingau!) after another (delicate Mosel Kabinetts from C.H. Berres and Selbach-Oster, then a very exciting Spätlese from Maximin Grünhaus in the Ruwer Valley). Then the powerful, but subtle 2004 Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) served with spit-roasted pheasant and morels blew many minds: “that’s really a German red wine?” So the Co. part of the evening’s theme not only functioned well, but seemed to hit a string of bulls eyes. The evening was also special for me, because we held a twitter competition and David Sprintis won a copy of my new book, BEST WHITE WINE ON EARTH – The Riesling Story (#BWWOE). That made him my very first real reader, because so far only members of the team at Abrams (under who’s Stewart, Tabori & Chang imprint the book appears) have read it.  We will be holding a competition like that at every event during our expedition. Just tweet with our hashtag #RieslingRoadTrip and you stand a way bigger chance of winning a copy of my book than a New York Lottery ticket give you of winning that pile of millions! The prize is something that even all that money can’t buy you, because the book is unavailable until close to June 17th; the official publication date. Riesling Contraband!

I’m not someone who can do all this strange Riesling stuff and travel all these distances on the Riesling Road without doing some serious thinking about what it all means. It strikes me that although I’m not on sailing the high seas on a huge ship and I don’t have a harpoon in my hand, just my notebook, camera and a wine glass, but I am a bit like Captain Ahab in Hermann Melville’s novel ‘Moby Dick’. The difference is that Captain Ahab had to search for his whale, his nemesis and we’re dragging mine behind me all the time, all the way to NYC on May 16th. I’m referring to the retro-fitted 20 foot shipping container that is our mobile tasting room. The first time I saw it standing at the side of the road in Venice Beach/LA last July it reminded me of a beached whale and that’s how it looked to me again on Monday when I met up with it again on a Key West backstreet. Sometimes, like last night’s aperitif hour under a freeway overpass on the wrong side of the tracks in Miami, it seems to swallow me whole, but so far it always spat me out in one piece. As Nietzsche said, “anything which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger!” and Miami didn’t kill me in spite of a couple of slightly dangerous moments. The locals call them Miami Moments, but NOW our small convoy, the whale and I are approaching West Palm Beach. I’m coming back, because I was here in February. The images below are by Wynwood based artist Peter Tunney, for whom Miami is a City of Dreams. For me it’s West Palm Beach!

This is how our whole mad endeavor began early this morning on Higgs Beach in Key West/Florida. Suddenly it was time to hit the Riesling Road and head due north on #RieslingRoadTrip 2! North is the direction every Riesling wine looks in its heart of hearts, and it’s the direction that the heart of every Riesling leans too. The Rhine, Mosel, Nahe, Main, Neckar (four wine tributaries of the Rhine) and the Elbe!  Strange and holy waters in the Riesling Far North on the other side of the pond pictured above. So there was no alternative, but to say goodbye to the tropical vegetation, the beautiful birds and lizards of this island with a sell-by date (due to global warming and the rising oceans that it’s unfortunately causing).

That’s a sad story, so let’s turn to my big positive discovery here: the grossly under-appreciated Key West Sunrise. Tourists here are obsessed with two things, the Southernmost Point in the U.S. and the Key West Sunset. Of course, I also did those two Must Do things. To be frank the Southernmost Point marker looks like a gaudily colored, over-sized traffic obstacle. Parking our whale (more about our mobile tasting room soon) next to it actually made the marker look a whole lot better. It wasn’t even a surprise, because when I landed at Key West airport yesterday the terminal building was adorned with a copy of it and what looked like wax works of a group of tourists standing around it. At that moment any suspense was out the window.

However, the Key West Sunset really has a lot going for it, although when people talk about it what they actually mean is the sunset plus crowds of tourists in shorts watching it. And in that warm, waning glow most of those people look way better than in full daylight. In contrast, the sunrise is seen only by few, because most people are still crashed out from the previous night‘s revelry. This means that the hardy few can savor it undisturbed. Even the luxury condos look beautiful in that pearly and peachy light. To misquote the radio DJs: it’s another beautiful daybreak in paradise!

I have a theory that I’ll be testing on a group of Floridian wine consumers in Miami later today. It says that when the sun comes up the Great Riesling Lamp goes on. Then the normal human response to that is to feel a growing yearning for my favorite wine in it original German form, with that dangerously refreshing taste which changed my life so many times I lost count. It can do the same for you too!

As many of you (the regular readers) already know I was in February I was in Florida for the first time, and even that early in the year the Great Riesling Lamp went on every day. I think this means that Florida has the longest Riesling Season of any state in the Union! The only problem is that many residents of and visitors to the Sunshine State don’t realize this vital fact yet, and are suffering unnecessarily from Riesling Deprivation Syndrome (RDS). By the way, recent research showed that RDS reduces your sex appeal and may even harm your credit rating.

During the next couple of days I’ll be doing all I can to reduce the still high percentage of Floridians suffering from RDS. I don’t begin to understand it, but yesterday evening in Key West drinking big heavy Californian reds. I’ve nothing against those wines on principal, but on a warm Key West night unless you’re in a room with the AC cranked up full blast (artificial winter) and you’ve got a big steak (hardly local produce!), they could be difficult to get down in more than homeopathic quantities. Maybe the explanation for this illogical behavior lies in images like the above, or at least their presence as fantasies in the minds of a certain type of men. I mean the ones who think that they’re macho.

If those really are the only wines you enjoy, then as Your Drinking Advisor I suggest beer or margaritas instead. However, Riesling is the best refreshment in this climate. I speak from experience, having tested the effect of Riesling on my own body and soul under varying degrees of heat blast in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas during the first #RieslingRoadTrip last July. It always worked, even in temperatures way over 100° F in Phoenix, and sometimes it was the wines I thought would be too simple to excite me which gave me the greatest refreshment.  One of the wonders of German Riesling is that global warming increased the number of those wines. There’s something paradoxical about this, because climate change reduced the acidity content of German Rieslings and increased their bodyweight, and on paper that ought to make them much less refreshing.

Next up will be some thoughts about the deeper meaning of our Undertaking, our eccentric vehicle, and the road we are taking. Of course, there will also be plenty of strange stuff that happened, because when you undertake something like this you invite strangeness to come and seek you out. At least, if you imagine that it won’t, then I think you’re deluding yourself. I promise you that I’m not, and I promise that I’ll keep all my sense and my mind open for it at every twist and turning of this Long and Winding Riesling Road. Grab a glass of wine (preferably something dangerously refreshing from Germany), sit back and watch this space!

PS We just reached Miami and I must dash into the shower to make sure I’m halfway on time for this evening’s dinner at The Cypress Room in the Design District

All apologies for this horribly delayed posting. The problem was a demon combination of the terrible internet reception and midnight bug-hunting in my Key West/FL hotel. Finally, here is my wine of the month for May 2014:

2012 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir from Kutch Wines for about $45

The night before I left New York Wine City (NYWC) on #RieslingRoadTrip 2 I drank this awesome “normal” Pinot Noir. You could say that it was an appropriate choice for that moment, because Jamie Kutch used to work on Wall Sreet, that is before he chose wine over bonds, but that’s really not the point. He’s been in pursuit of balance ever since then, and is one of the leading members of the eponymous association of California Pinot Noir producers. What’s really important is that there’s something seriously bewitching about this wine that marries ripe black fruit and chocolate aromas with radically cool herbal elements, the sweetness from the Californian sun mingling with a contrasting darkness, light and shadow seemed to dance on your tongue in a way that defies facile description. Then there’s the fact that it doesn’t taste like Burgundy or anything else on Planet Pinot, but is entirely itself, entirely Sonoma Coast and Jamie Kutch. That’s why I’ve enormously stretched my normal price limit for the wine of the month this time. Some things MUST be and all the rules must go straight out of the window!

The 2012 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir from Kutch Wines is rather widely distributed in the New York area. For example, you can get it for $42,99 plus tax at Chambers Street Wines. See:

www.chambersstwines.com

PS as soon as I’ve finished my Cafe con Leche and Pan Cubano breakfast the #RieslingRoadTrip for Riesling & Co. from Germany begins in earnest!!!

This morning I was sitting in the office of Paul Colarusso, the marketing manager of Abrams Books just a couple of blocks from here in Downtown Manhattan, when he pulled up an email onto his computer screen and said to me with some real excitement in his voice, “Stuart, the advance copies of your book are here!” Just a couple of minutes later I was holding the book pictured above in my hand and the theoretical phase of this project had abruptly ended. No less suddenly, the practical task of making sure that as many people as possible find out that my book exists had begun. The day continued along those lines with Levi Dalton doing a long in-depth interview with me for his popular wine podcast ‘I’ll Drink to That!’ Life has changed dramatically and for a period of some months is going to be very different to the long haul of the research (February 2012 thru July 2013) and the intense burst of writing and corrections (August 2013 thru March 2014) that brought me to this point. I can’t wait to hear all your comments, but, sadly, you will have to be patient until the official publication date of Wednesday, June 17th (or slightly before if you’re really lucky). Many thanks to all of you who supported this project in so many ways! Anyone wanting to pre-order should click on the link below or contact their bookseller:

http://www.amazon.com/Best-White-Wine-Earth-Riesling/dp/1617691100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394226046&sr=8-1&keywords=Best+white+wine+on+earth

Yes, sometimes it’s frustrating for me when bad internet reception delays a new posting going online, as it did yesterday at Düsseldorf Airport just before I jumped on my flight to New York Wine City (NYWC). However, the fact is that this blog is not a news site, rather a collection of what American journalists used to call “think pieces”. For thoughts that go way beyond the bustle of daily activity in NYWC and the Big Wide Wine World (BWWW) there really isn’t the same urgency to get the story out there. Then the important thing is that the thoughts are followed through in a way that gets to the bottom of what’s happening. I hope that that’s the case with the below.

I often get the comment from people in NYWC and in the BWWW that the title of my forthcoming book BEST WHITE WINE ON EARTH – The Riesling Story (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, from Mid-June) is a declaration of war on the wines of other white grape varieties, or at least a statement that seeks to exclude them. This is an understandable misunderstanding, because the people making it haven’t been able to read my book yet. As great and longstanding as my enthusiasm for Riesling is, I see it as in peaceful coexistence with other grape varieties everywhere it’s grown. For example, in Great Southern/Western Australia it flourishes next to Shiraz (Syrah), in the Wachau/Austria next to Grüner Veltliner and in the Rheingau next to Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir). It is not in competition with those grape varieties in any of those place. In all those places, rather Riesling complements them, sometimes being statistically more dominant than them, sometimes inferior to them in terms of vineyard area planted. However, I can already hear some voices calling out, “well, so what?”

Pictured above is Carolin Bergdolt, the winemaker of the Bergolt (St. Lamprecht) estate in Duttweiler close to Neusatdt/Pfalz. Following in the footsteps of her father Rainer she produces some of the finest dry Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) in the world. The bottle she is holding is her 2013 Weissburgunder “Mineral”, a sleek, extremely lively and intensely mineral-flavored wine. This name is highly reminiscent of the dry Riesling “Mineral” from Emrich-Schönleber in Monzingen/Nahe, of which the 2012 was one of the stunning moderately-priced wines of that vintage in Germany. And, of course, a lot of other German Rieslings are named after geological formations, which certainly strongly imply that they possess a mineral character. Here we have a perfect example of how Riesling has become a source of inspiration for the wines of other grape varieties in Germany. It’s important to note that this wine is not a Riesling-copy (something which some other producers offer), but has the fresh nuts, pear and citrus aromas that I find prototypic for Weissburgunder and the more moderate acidity typical of this grape’s wines. This positive use of Riesling inspiration for other wines will surely become much more common and important during the years to come and not just in Germany. It is a sure sign that Riesling is now being accepted as an inherently positive phenomenon by consumers, rather than being viewed with a vague and irrational skepticism, as was long the case.

The picture was taken at the Mainzer Weinbörse on Monday, April 28th. The 2013 Weissburgunder “Mineral” from Bergdolt wasn’t the best wine I tasted at that event, although Carolin Bergdolt’s richer, more sauce and complex 2013 Mandelberg Weissburgunder was certainly a candidate for that title. If you insist on regarding this story as “news”, then I’m definitely way to late in publicizing it. However, if you want to understand what’s going on in the BWWW and you’re willing to think things over in order to do so, then this is a very timely posting. I hope that you’re on my side on this thing. If not, then please let me know!

“Can the Germans eat cold fried chicken with their hands?” was the question that Rienne Martinez of the Carl Ehrhard Winebar in Rüdesheim/Rheingau asked herself as she marinated the chicken for the third course of the Dirty Dozen wine dinner we jointly staged at the winebar. It was a good question, for while Germans love picknicks and eagerly eat with their hands in that situation once linen and silverware hit the table and candles have been lit the German tendency to fear being seen to do the wrong thing comes to the fore. So, when the silverware was removed from the table, then the course was served Rienne was giving them a big push. Would they leap or recoil?

A couple of people – I think they were students at the nearby Geisenheim wine school – eagerly grapsed their pieces of chicken in the hand while others observed them from a distance. Then a few well manicured hands gingerly reached out for the food that would smear jewlery and nail polish in grease. Then suddenly everybody had that cold fried chicken in their hands and was chomping on it, although I don’t think most of them would like the verb I’ve chosen to describe what they did. Amazingly, the powerful but subtle 2007 Morstein Riesling “Großes Gewächs” from Wittmann in Westhofen/Rheinhessen was a great match with the dish, and everybody got that too. It was like a scene in an as yet unfilmed movie!

Of course, this was a wine dinner and we didn’t limit ourselves to Riesling. One of my favorite wines of the evening was the 2005 Spätburgunder “Edition” from Carl Ehrhard, which was in that sweet spot for Pinot Noir reds where there is still plenty of fruit and livliness, but time has had a chance to round off the edges and open up the non-fruity aromas. This was such a charming wine, but also serious stuff. Don’t worry, the depot pictured above was not thrown by that wine in a fit of jealousy that some of the other reds got as much positive comment as it. This stuff was in the bottom of all three decanters in which the 2008 Saperavi from NIKA winery in Georgia was massively aerated prior to being served. If you think Chateau Latour has a lot of dry tannins, then think again and try the NIKA Saperavi, which is made entirely in amphora. The taste is as extreme as this picture looks – if it was from a movie I’d say it was from a splatter movie – but the majority of the guests at the Dirty Dozen dinner wanted a repour when asked. The Germans are braver than the world makes them out to be!