Stuart Pigott's Planet Wine

I’m often asked about my wine cellar, and sometimes I can see from the way the eyes of my questioner glaze over that they’re expecting something which looks like the crypt of a cathedral or at the least the cellar of a Medieval castle in Scotland. They want cobwebs and the dust of centuries, also at least a few rare and exceptional bottles of the kind even serious wine collectors can only dream about. In short, it should be a dark and damp Wine Heaven on Earth illuminated only by a few flickering candles! The few people I actually took down there were therefore seriously disappointed when they found what you can see above: rows of plastic crates and cases between concrete walls with no hint of stone, wood, much less any serious cobwebs. The only dust is from the plaster on the walls and ceiling crumbling, the only light is from fluorescent tubes of the standard kind.

But for me it is still a romantic place, because of the wine in the bottles. In his poem ‘L’ame du vin’ Charles Baudelaire wrote about the soul of wine being imprisoned behind the glass of the bottle, waiting to be released by the drinker, and that’s exactly how I see it today. Of course, some of this is also in my mind in the form of memories of the people who made those wines, the places the grapes grew, and situations in which I previously experienced them. What you see is just packaging (at the front of the picture literally so, those being the labels of Keller in Flörsheim-Dalsheim/Rheinhessen and of Sinß in Windesheim/Nahe). Frankly, that is all ballast weighing the wines down. I dread to think what the carbon footprint of all the glass bottles in my cellar is (of course, I recycle), and hope one day a better technical solution will be found. Some are ridiculously and unnecessarily heavy, particularly those for the GGs (Großes Gewächs). VDP please take note and address this problem, because currently you’re in denial!

The other thing which immediately strikes me when I go into my cellar is that there is a ton of wine in there, maybe 2,000 bottles (my list isn’t complete so I can’t calculate exactly). Is this too much? The library function of my cellar is undeniable and it really does help me build up a picture of how the important wines of earlier vintages taste now, which also tells me something useful about the producers responsible for them. Of course, that’s all good for my work as a wine journalist. However, in retrospect, there was a time when I took it all too far. By that I mean there was an obsessive-compulsive aspect to my wine purchases. If you suffer from Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD is the correct name not the widely-used OCD), or have a close friend/relative who suffers, then you know what I’m talking about. If not I promise you that suffering impacts many parts of your life. I’m trying to overcome, or at least, to seriously dampen down this side of my personality, so I’ve put much less wine in the cellar the last couple of years.

And, yes, I did buy almost all the wine that went into this cellar. Winegrowers who sent wine presents that went beyond one bottle at Christmas received bottles from me in return and/or dinner invitations which included wine from my cellar. A couple of wine merchants sent me single expensive bottles, generally of French wine. These were always put to good use in blind tastings. The only wines I ever asked producers for were samples for specific tastings, and that is a strict policy. A lot of wine from this cellar was poured without charge at charity events in Germany and New York. I am not perfect, nor can I be, but I try to be straight, fair and, most importantly, to share.

I would be hard to find a more boring scene to present to you than the above corner of Bromley, the London suburb where I – also David Bowie – come from. The point is that I could have used another photo taken in another part of the Great London Area that would have been virtually indistinguishable from this one. It was a bland place when I grew up there, but it has become much more bland since then. Every time I come here to visit my mother this simple fact shocks me again. However, that’s not all I experience when I’m suddenly immersed in the world I turned my back on a quarter of a century ago. There’s a very different, parallel shock I experience through the British media and on the streets. This results from the fact of, acceptance and glorification of violence. The only place I was ever violently attacked was on a street corner in London almost indistinguishable from the above. Thankfully a friend pulled my drunken attacker from me after he’d landed only one blow to my head and a young woman who saw what happened stopped her car and rescued us before the youth’s friends could join him.

Bad as this kind of violence is, the way, for example, the British media make bombing Iraq seem the most natural and moral thing to do is worse still. That British troops first entered the territory that is now Iraq (then a province of the Ottoman Empire) just over a century ago on November 6th, 1914 and was it occupied by the British again (although it was then a neutral country) during WWII is forgotten. The standard formula British politicians use for this kind of forgetting is, “it’s time to move on,” and their catch-all motto for our participation in military adventures far from these shores is that we must, “punch above our weight,” in world affairs. George Orwell had some pertinent words to describe this kind of talk: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”

Of course, in the leafy suburbia where I grew up all was and is not evil. And it was here that I developed my own way of looking at the world. A good part of British creativity – also, for example, David Bowie’s music – grows out of this leafy suburbia, that is a reaction against it that would be impossible without it. If you doubt the relevance of my words to David Bowie’s music I suggest you listen to ‘Life from Mars’ on the ‘Hunky Dory’ album, which rather precisely describes the world he and I grew up in.

On rainy, grey winter days like today on which England looks all brown, grey and (absurdly for the season) very green I wish myself back to Berlin or New York where I feel free from the weight of British history’s ballast of violence. Of course, the histories of both Germany and America are also laden with ballast of the same kind, but there I feel a sense of detachment from it when I think about it, because those are not my national identities. Oddly, both those cities were also important for David Bowie. His album ‘Heroes’ was the soundtrack for my first immersion in Germany that same year, 1976. When ‘The Next Day’ suddenly came out in 2013 I immediately recognized the New York I was then exploring. Listening to it now it sounds doubly appealing due to the distance.

I will have more to say about England and Germany on January 29th. So watch this space on that day!

This is the first blog posting I’ve written straight into this slot without any plan for some time, and it sure feels good to be shooting from the hip again. Normally, I’m very cautious of using military or firearm metaphors, but this one fits my subject today (this first day of the so-called New Year of 2105) perfectly, because it’s so fundamentally American, and this really is My American Wine Year.

In fact, My American Wine Year began several months ago after I finished work on BEST WHITE WINE ON EARTH – The Riesling Story (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) / PLANET RIESLING (the German language edition from Tre Torri ). At that point it occurred to me that many of my best stories had either never been written down at all, or at least had never been told in English. Furthermore, nearly all of them took place in America, or had obvious American subjects. They span the entire period from my first eye-popping encounter with the US of A back in 1985, through many years of serious research and some serious craziness along the way, right up to the present. That’s the period during which wine entered mainstream American culture, the US became the world’s biggest wine consuming nation, and its entrepreneurial creativity eclipsed that of almost every competing wine producing nation.

That strikes me as a dynamite combo, and – what good luck! – the ideal basis for an outrageously true book about wine in America. Some new research will be necessary, but not so much that this new year I’ll have to be on the road for months at a go. However, I will be getting as close as possible, not only to the vines and cellars, but most importantly to my human subjects. This method is often called Gonzo Journalism, although you can just as well describe it as off-road deep-immersion, but whatever name you give it, this is the kind of searching for the truth and writing about it that I naturally gravitate to. To my mind, the best book anyone can possibly write is the one that converts their life directly into pages of text, and my goal with this project I’m calling #CBL is to do exactly that with myself immersed in Wine America big time.

It’s a little more than two years since I began spending a lot of time in the US both to intensively research the dramatic recent Riesling developments here (and in Canada) and to write BEST WHITE WINE ON EARTH from an American perspective. Along the way I encountered a slew of exciting new wines made from other grape varieties, and many of the winemakers and vineyard locations responsible for them located were way outside the American Wine Box. None of these discoveries was more surprising and exciting than Arizona, which I visited in 2013 and ’14.

The usual reaction from Americans when  I mention of vineyards in Arizona is, “it’s way too hot for vines! That’s the desert!” Of course, Phoenix is one of the hottest places in the US and much of Arizona is desert, but this is nowhere near the whole story as the photograph taken by Maynard James Keenan of Caduceus Cellars and Merkin Vineyards in Jerome/AZ today shows. The press trip to Arizona’s vineyards which he, a group of colleagues and Dada PR man David Furer organized in Mid-November was a turning point for my project. Not only did I write some of my best stories for this blog (scroll down and click on “older posts”), it also give me another great subject, and with that the basic plan for the book took much clearer shape. The serious work had begun, and that was seriously exciting: exactly the combination I look for.

Official Warning! : I just completed the first chapter of #CBL and it isn’t only outrageous, but dangerous too. Don’t worry though, this year you won’t be in acute danger, because I won’t complete the manuscript before the last days of August. That means it will be  a bit more than a year until it gets out into the big wide world in the form of print on paper an e-book where it can finally cause some real trouble. Then it will carry a parental advisory sticker to prevent harm being done to impressionable young people. The book will be a white-knuckle ride for adult readers and I feel responsible for young people, who are also the wine drinkers of the future. They may have to wait a bit longer to enjoy to the full.

Happy New Year!

Here, alternating in Deutsch and English, are my Riesling Heroes of 2014.

Riesling-Helden? Klingt das nicht abgedroschen? Vielleicht schon. The Stranglers haben 1977 sehr überzeugend „No More Heroes“, keine Helden mehr, gesungen. Dieses Lied gegen Helden begeistert mich heute wie damals. Die Stranglers hatten durchaus Recht, weil das 20. Jahrhundert der Welt ein Überangebot an Demagogen und idealistischen  Ungeheuern geliefert hat. Sie haben sich als Helden verkleidet ins Rampenlicht gestellt und Millionen von Menschen über den Tisch gezogen. Aber Riesling ist nicht Macht oder Ideologie, sondern ein besonderes Getränk, das Millionen von Menschen Freude bereitet. Meiner Meinung nach ist jemand, der sich hartnäckig und nachhaltig dafür einsetzt, diese Freude zu vergrößern Riesling-Held oder -Heldin. Weil die Leistung dieser Menschen eine größere Bekanntheit verdient, habe ich die Auszeichnung „Riesling Held(in) des Jahres“ ins Leben gerufen. Heute stelle ich die ersten Preisträger vor.

Riesling Heroes? Does that sound dated or clichéd? Maybe it does. The Stranglers famously sung “No More Heroes” back in 1977, a song seriously excited me back then and still does today. They were right. The 20^th century gave the world an overdose of demagogues and idealistic monsters who dressed up in heroic garb, grabbed the spotlight and pulled the wool over millions of people’s eyes. However, Riesling isn’t power or ideology, it’s a remarkable beverage that gives enormous pleasure to millions of people. For me anyone who works long and hard to expand that joy against all the odds qualifies as a Riesling Hero. Because these people need to be more widely known I am creating a prize for the Riesling Hero(es) of the year and giving it today for the first time today.

Meine (oben abgebildeten) Riesling-Helden 2014 sind (von links nach rechts) Pascal Brooks, der Besitzer von Brooks Wines in Oregon, Janie Brooks Heuck, die Verwalterin, und Chris Williams,  der Winemaker. Pascal ist der Sohn des 2004 frühzeitig verstorbenen Gründers Jimi Brooks. Janie ist Jimis Schwester, die bis zu dessen Tod nichts von Wein verstanden hat, und Chris war zu Jimis Lebzeiten seine rechte Hand im Keller. Jetzt entwickelten sie gemeinschaftlich die besondere, von Jimi erfundene Weinstilistik weiter, vor allem bei Riesling und Pinot Noir. Ihre Geschichte habe ich ausführlich in PLANET RIESLING erzählt, aber sie ist damit nicht zur Ende.

My Riesling Heroes 2014, pictured above, are, from left to right, Pascal Brooks owner of the Books winery in Oregon, General Manager Janie Brooks Heuck and winemaker Chris Williams. Pascal is the son of founder Jimi Brooks, Janie is his sister, who prior to Jimi’s sudden death in 2004 knew nothing about wine, and Chris was Jimi’s assistant in the cellar. Together they continue to develop Jimi’s distinctive wine styles, particularly those for Pinot Noir and Riesling. I told their story at some length in BEST WHITE WINE ON EARTH, but this story keeps developing.

Schon bevor mein Buch erschienen ist, hat Janie mit ihrer rechten Hand, Jess Pierce, die RIESLING INVASION in Portland/Oregon organisiert. Diese größte Präsentation von Oregon Riesling-Weinen aller Zeiten begeisterte am 19. Juli mehr als 300 Fans. An diesem Tag wurde mir klar, dass Oregon eine kompakte, aber äußerst dynamische Riesling-Szene hat, die von den Wein- und Gastro-Medien immer noch nicht richtig wahrgenommen wird. Den Grund dafür habe ich in meinem Buch „Pinot-Nebel“ genannt. Mehr als 60% der Gesamtrebfläche Oregons ist mit Pinot Noir bestockt, weitere 10% mit Pinot Gris. Zusammen lenken sie die Aufmerksamkeit der Konsumenten und Journalisten von Riesling und anderen Traubensorten ab.

Already before my book had appeared, together with her right hand woman Jess Pierce (officially she’s Director of Wine Education), Janie was planning the RIESLING INVASION event that took place in Portland/Oregon on Saturday, July 19th. It was the largest presentation of Oregon Rieslings ever and attracted a crowd of more than 300 fans. The event made plain to me how Oregon has a compact, but very dynamic Riesling scene to which the American wine and gastronomic media long paid too little attention. This is because of what I call in my book, “Pinot fog.” The dominance of Pinot Noir (more than 60% of the state’s vineyards!) and Pinot Gris (another 10%) in the Oregon wine industry seriously distract popular and media attention from Riesling, and everything else too.

Während dieses Oregon-Besuchs ist es mir auch klar geworden, dass das Brooks-Team nicht die einzigen Riesling  Helden in diesem Bundesstaat sind. Die Peterson-Nedrys der Chehalem Winery – Vater Harry (oben doppelt abgebildet) und seine Winemaker-Tochter Wynne – verdienen ebenfalls diese Auszeichnung. Und seit ein paar Jahren steht sie auch Andrea und James Frey von Trisaetum zu. Aber nur Janie Brooks Heuck ist so oft und so hartnäckig in Sache Oregon-Riesling unterwegs. Sie hat diese Weine zu einem Thema gemacht, das von den Mitgliedern der amerikanische Weinszene  nicht mehr leichtsinnig ignoriert werden kann.  Manche tun es trotzdem und geben dabei keine gute Figur ab.

During that visit to Oregon I also realized the Brooks team aren’t the only Riesling Heroes in this state. The Peterson-Nedrys of Chehalem Winery – father Harry (pictured above with his double) and winemaker daughter Wynne – have long deserved that accolade. And in the last couple of years Andrea and James Frey’s of the Triseatum winery have earned a claim to the title too. However, it is Janie who goes out on the road and makes a Big Noise about Oregon Rieslings that makes it almost impossible for people in the American wine scene to ignore them any more. Of course, some still do, but I think they end up looking a bit ridiculous.

Im stillen Kämmerlein des Kellers arbeitet Chris Williams weiter an der Verfeinerung der Brooks-Rieslinge.  Er hat das Sortiment in die zart-süße (die Spätlese-artige ‚Sweet P’) und süße (der mächtige und super-konzentrierte ‚Tethys’) Richtung erweitert. Staubtrockene Weine bleiben der Kern des Sortiments, und da setzt Chris so konsequent auf Spontangärung wie kaum ein anderer Riesling-Winemaker des Kontinents. Seine Weine sind Langläufer mit enormem Entwicklungspotential. Es gibt nur ein Handvoll trockener Weine auf dem PLANET RIESLING, die am Anfang ihres Lebens so karg und mineralisch wirken und durch Flaschenreife so viel Charme gewinnen. Diese Weine regelmäßig zurückzuhalten und erst auf den Markt zu bringen, wenn sie aufblühen, verlangt nicht nur starke Nerven, sondern auch einen Businessplan, der wie Janies extra darauf ausgerichtet ist.

Back at the ranch, Chris Williams has been quietly perfecting the Brooks Riesling and extending the range from its dry core into the medium-sweet (the deliciously succulent ‘Sweet P’) and  sweet (the unctuously concentrated ‘Tethys’) directions. Chris has strong principals that derive from his deceased mentor, and I don’t know any other Riesling winemaker in America who is so committed to wild ferments, or makes that work so well. His wines are all built for the long haul and have enormous ageing potential. I can’t think of more than a handful of other dry Rieslings on the planet that start life this austere and mineral, but gain so much charm as they age. Systematically holding these wines back and only releasing them when they begin to blossom requires not only strong nerves, but also the business plan Janie designed for that.

Neben der ganzen anderen Arbeit hat Janie den Betrieb im letzten Jahr durch eine große Umstellung gesteuert. Der alte Keller war nicht nur klein, er war viel zu klein für die Produktionsmenge und verlangte von Chris eine Meisterleistung an Improvisation. Inzwischen ist die geräumige neue Kellerei an der Spitze der Estate Vineyard in den Eola-Amity Hills im Betrieb.  Die Riesling-Helden 2014 haben eine neue Heimat!

The old Brooks winery was not just compact, it was tiny for the amount of wine that Chris Williams had to make there. I was amazed by his improvisational talent, without which this wouldn’t have been possible at all. On top of everything else going on during the last year Janie oversaw the construction of Brooks new winery at the top of their hillside Estate Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills. The Riesling Heroes of 2014 have a new home!

Here, alternating in Deutsch and English, are my highlights of 2014.

2014 war mein persönliches Riesling-Jahr: Ich habe mein Riesling-Buch fertiggeschrieben und einer durstigen Welt vorgestellt. BEST WHITE WINE ON EARTH wurde im Juni in New York von Stewart, Tabori & Chang veröffentlicht, und PLANET RIESLING, die erweiterte deutschsprachige Ausgabe erschien vor wenigen Wochen im Tre Torri Verlag, Wiesbaden. Die Resonanz war überwiegend sehr positiv, am vergangenen Freitag gab es ein dickes Lob durch die israelische Zeitung Haaretz. Aber natürlich hat das Buch auch polarisiert. Nicht jeder versteht Riesling oder wird es je schaffen.

So muss es sein!

2014 was my Riesling year, that is the year in which I finished my Riesling book and presented it to a thirsty world. BEST WHITE WINE ON EARTH was published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang in New York in June, and the German-language edition (with a greatly extended chapter on Germany) PLANET RIESLING was published by Tre Torri early this month. The response to it has  mostly been very positive – just on Friday there was a rave review in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz! – but of course it has polarized opinion. Not everybody “gets” Riesling or my book, nor will they ever do so.

So be it!

Als mein Buch erschien, war es topaktuell, aber der PLANET RIESLING dreht sich so schnell, dass ich seither einige wichtige Entdeckungen machen konnte. Diese Weine werden als meine RIESLING REVELATIONS 2015 geehrt. Es gibt sie in fünf Kategorien, weil es fünf Riesling-Hitlisten in meinem Buch gibt: für die besten trockenen, feinherben, zartsüßen, süßen und „Bladerunner“-Rieslinge. Ein Bladerunner ist ein besonders gewagter Wein. Diese stilistische Vielfalt zählt zum wichtigen Kapital des Rieslings, obwohl es auch manche Konsumenten verwirrt.

So muss es sein!

Although my book was up-to-date at the moment of publication, the world of Riesling is very dynamic and I there made some exciting new discoveries after it appeared. It is these wines my RIESLING REVELATIONS 2015 honor. There are five of them, because at the back of this book are five hit-lists of the world’s best Riesling producers grouped by the four categories of the IRF Taste Profile – dry, medium-dry, medium-sweet and sweet – plus “Bladerunners” for pioneers and the daring. Of course, this stylistic diversity is both an asset for Riesling, but also confuses some people.

So be it!

DRY / TROCKEN:

2012 13th Street Vineyard Riesling – 13th Street in Catharines, Ontario/Canada

Die meisten Riesling-Weine von der Niagara-Halbinsel in Ontario sind feinherb oder zartsüß, weil hier die Säure in den Weinen fast immer sehr ausgeprägt ist. (Ja, Übersee-Rieslinge können noch mehr Säure besitzen als europäische Rieslinge!) Winemaker Jean-Pierre Colas ist mit diesem Wein der erste beeindruckende trockene Riesling des Gebiets gelungen. Erstmals habe ich diesen Wein September 2013 verkostet und seine überraschende Geschmeidigkeit in PLANET RIESLING gelobt. Seither hat er sich großartig entwickelt. Sein aromatischer Reichtum macht ihn jetzt zum besten trockenen kanadischen Riesling, den ich je erlebt habe. Der aus dem Burgund stammende Colas hat dieser Weinkategorie ein ganz neue Perspektive hinzugefügt. Zwar hat er darauf verzichtet, diesen Wein wie einen Chardonnay auszubauen, aber manche Ideen aus dieser ganz andere Welt des Weißweins hat er für den Riesling erfolgreich adaptiert.

Chapeau! Und der Wein ist noch für kanadische $23,95 ab Hof zu kaufen!

Most of the best Riesling wines from the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario are medium-dry or seriously sweet, because these wines of this region are naturally full of acidity. Winemaker Jean-Pierre Colas has made the first great dry Riesling I encountered in Ontario. Although I first tasted the wine back in September 2013 and put it in my book, the wine has developed even better than I thought and now has an aromatic complexity that I never before found in a dry Canadian Riesling. That might not have been possible if Jean-Pierre hadn’t brought a fresh, Burgundian perspective to this challenge. However, he certainly hasn’t made this wine as if it were Burgundian Chardonnay, rather he adapted some of those techniques to this very different grape and climate.

Chapeau! This is still available from the winery for Canadian $23.95!

MEDIUM-DRY / FEINHERB:

2013 Riesling – Sphera in Kibbutz Gat, Judean Hills/Israel

Das Letzte, was ich in Israel erwartet habe, war ein eleganter Riesling. Denn das Klima ist „falsch” für diese Art von Weißwein. Das war meine feste Überzeugung. Dann hat mir Winemaker Doron Rav Hon von Sphera bewiesen, dass es mit der richtigen Lage (Nordhang) und einem sehr genauen Einsatz von Bewässerung möglich ist, sagenhafte Weine aus meiner Lieblingstraube zu erzeugen.  Die Aromen von weißen Blüten und nassem Laub, diese leichtfüßige und filigrane Art haben mich schwer an die Weinen aus Cool-Climate-Gebieten wie der Mosel erinnert. Als ich den Wein das erste mal im Oktober in Tel Aviv verkostete, war ich verführt, den Alkoholgehalt um mehrere Volumenprozent zu unterschätzen und die Süße des Weins genauso deutlich zu überschätzen. In der Tat hat der Wein ganze 13% Alkohol und nur etwa zehn  Gramm Restsüße/Liter. Nur ein visionärer Winzer wie Doron schafft es, solche bisher unerkannte Möglichkeiten ans Tageslicht zu bringen!

Leider war die Produktion ziemlich klein, und der Wein ist sehr schwierig aufzutreiben.

The last thing I was expecting to find in Israel was an elegant Riesling, because the climate is “wrong” for this kind of wine, or so I thought. However, with this wine Doron Rav Hon of Sphera has proven that with the right site (north-facing) and the precise use of irrigation it’s possible to achieve miracles with my favorite grape in Israel. What amazed me was that his wine has the aromas of white flowers and dripping leaves, plus the light-footedness and filigree I associate with the wines from cool climate Riesling regions like the Mosel. This lead me to underestimate the wine’s alcoholic content by several degrees and seriously overestimate its sweetness when I tasted it Tel Aviv in October. It actually has 13% of alcohol and roughly 10 grams/liter residual sweetness. It takes a visionary winegrower like Doron to uncover possibilities like these!

Sadly, this is a rather limited production wine that’s very difficult to find, even in Israel.

MEDIUM-SWEET  / ZARTSÜSS: 

2013 Oelsberg Riesling Spätlese Feinherb – Dr. Randolf Kauer in Bacharach, Mittelrhein/Germany

Seit mehr als 20 Jahren kenne ich Randolf Kauer, Professor für Ökoweinbau an der Wein-Uni in Geisenheim/Rheingau. Wie kann es dann bei ihm etwas wirklich Neues geben? Schon damals gelangen ihm einige erstaunliche herbe Rieslinge im Mini-Weingut in Bacharach im Süden des winzigen Mittelrhein-Gebiets. In PLANET RIESLING habe ich ihn für seine aktuellen Weine sowie für seinen Einsatz bei der Rekultivierung der terrassierten Spitzenlage Oberweseler Oelsberg gelobt. Seine ersten Weine aus dieser historischen Steillage waren genau so schlank, rassig und mineralisch wie seine anderen Rieslinge. 2013 hat er diesen überraschenden, zartsüßen Wein mit großartigem Schmelz, enormer Würze und fast ewig langem Finale erzeugt. Dieser Wein zeigt in eine ganz andere Richtung als alle anderen Mittelrhein-Weine die mir bisher begegnet sind. Übrigens, er stammt von jungen Reben!

Diese RIESLING REVELATION ist noch erhältlich, für Euro 12,50 ab Hof.

I’ve known Randolf Kauer, professor of organic winegrowing at the Geisenheim wine university, for over twenty years so how could there be anything new to report? Already back then he produced some remarkable Rieslings at his mini-winery in Bacharach in the tiny Mittelrhein region. My book praises him for this and for being one of a handful of winegrowers invested a great deal of time and money in the re-cultivation of the terraced Oelsberg vineyard site of Oberwesel. His first wines from that site were impressive dry wines that were sleek, racy and mineral like his other Rieslings. However, this richly-textured and powerful wine with enormous spicy aromas, just a hint of sweetness and a finish that glides off in the direction of eternity is different from anything else I ever tasted from the Mittelrhein. By the way, it comes from young vines!

This RIESLING REVELATION is still available from the estate for just Euro 12.50!

SWEET / SÜSS:

2011 Riesling “No. 198 Reserve” – Boundary Breaks in Finger Lakes, New York/USA

Jahrelang hat die Mehrheit der Winzer im Finger Lakes-Gebiet im Norden des amerikanischen Bundesstaats New York zwanghaft versucht, staubtrockene Riesling-Weine zu erzeugen, was sehr schwierig war auf Grund des ausgeprägten Säuregehalts und des schlanken Körpers dieser Weine. Erst in den letzten Jahren haben sie begriffen, dass ein harmonischer Geschmack wichtiger ist als irgendwelche analytischen Werte. Als Bruce Murray sein Mini-Weingut Boundary Breaks in den Finger Lakes gründete, da tat er dies aus einer Konsumenten- Perspektive, weil er noch hauptberuflich in der Marktforschung gearbeitet hat. Erstaunlicherweise  stammt dieser Wein aus seinem ersten Jahrgang.  Verantwortlich für diesen Wein ist Kelby Russell, der junge Winemaker von Red Newt Cellars; er kümmert sich auch um die meisten Boundary-Breaks-Weine. Es ist vermutlich der bisher beste Wein dieses Duos, er verfügt über die Reinheit, Brillanz und Feinheit, die viele Riesling-Fans mit den Weinen von Cornelius Dönnhoff an der Nahe verbinden. Noch steht dieser Wein am Anfang eines langen Lebens, genau wie Bruce Murray’s Boundary Breaks.

Leider ist diese süße Riesling-Sünde schon ausverkauft.

For many years the majority of the winemakers of the beautiful Finger Lakes region in Upstate New York struggled to make good bone dry wines although the Rieslings of this region naturally have a ton of acidity. Only recently did they being to realize that harmony of flavor was more important than analytical figures. Bruce Murray saw wine from a consumer’s perspective when he started his small winery in the region, because he was then still working full-time in market research in New York City. Amazingly, this wine comes from his first vintage. It was made by Kelby Russell, the young winemaker of Red Newt Cellars and a Harvard graduate, who now makes most of the Boundary Breaks wines. It is the best of many excellent wines this unlikely duo have made, a super-elegant naturally sweet Riesling that has a purity, brilliance and delicacy of flavor many Riesling fans associate with top Nahe/Germany winemaker Cornelius Dönnhoff.  It is still at the beginning of what will be a long life, just like Bruce Murray’s Boundary Breaks winery.

Sadly, this sinfully delicious sweet Riesling is already sold out.

BLADERUNNER:

2013 ‘Meskeoli’ –  Dos Cabezas in Sonoita, Arizona/USA

Was wäre wohl von einer Cuvée aus den Trauben Picpoul Blanc, Viognier, Roussanne (aus dem Rhônetal), Albarino (aus Nordwest-Spanien und Nord-Portugal), Muscat und Malvasia (aus dem östlichen Mittelmeerraum) und Riesling zu halten? Der ‘Meskeloi’ von Winemaker Todd Bostock schmeckt nicht nur einfach toll, er schmeckt als wären solche Cuvées ganz selbstverständlich. Als ich diesen Wein das erste mal im Oktober im Asylum Restaurant des Grand Hotels in Jerome, Arizona, verkostete, hat er mich richtig  umgehauen. Riesling (15%) bildet zusammen mit Albarino, Muscat und Malvasia (jeweils 3%) einen silbernen Faden von mineralischer Frische, der perfekt mit der Üppigkeit von Viognier (25%) und Roussanne (13%) verwoben ist. Picpoul Blanc (38%) wirkt wie das  Bindeglied zwischen diesen doch sehr unterschiedlichen Rebsorten. Ihre Summe führt auch zu einer beachtlichen aromatischen Komplexität. Riesling-Cuvées sind cool, wie dieser Wein beweist!

Dieser wunderbare Stück Riesling-Wahnsinn kostet US$28 ab Hof.

How could a blend of Picpoul Blanc, Viognier, Roussanne, Albarino, Muscat, Malvasia and Riesling from Arizona taste any good? Winemaker Todd Bostock’s ‘Meskeoli’ not only taste great, but it also tastes as if blending this seriously weird mix of grape varieties was the most natural thing on earth to do. When I first tasted it in the appropriately named Asylum Restaurant of the Grand Hotel of Jerome, Arizona this October the earth moved. It took some time from me to move from a state of wonder to thinking more logically about this wine. Then it struck me that together the Riesling (15%), Albarino, Muscat and Malvasia (3% each) formed a silver thread of mineral freshness that was perfectly interwoven with the richness of the Viognier (25%) and the Roussane (13%), the Picpoul Blanc (38%) filling out the middle. Somehow this mad melee of grapes also results in a serious complexity of aroma. Riesling blends are seriously cool and this wine shows why!

This magnificent piece of Riesling madness costs just $28 direct from Dos Cabezas.