Stuart Pigott's Planet Wine

I make no apologies for using this photograph again, because here I am tasting one of the three 100 point wines, the 2015 Scharzhofberger Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese from Egon Müller-Scharzhof in Wiltingen on the Saar, in my extensive report on the miraculous 2015 and 2016 vintages on the Mosel for JamesSuckling.com. You need to be a subscriber to read the tasting notes and see the individual scores, but anyone can read the opening text and see which wines we tasted – there were almost 700. Here’s the link:

https://www.jamessuckling.com/wine-tasting-reports/germanys-miraculous-mosel-duo-2015-2016/

I’ve been tasting the young wines on the Mosel and its tributaries the Saar and the Ruwer since the 1983 vintage and I never tasted such a stunning range as those from the last two vintages during the long week I spent in the region last month with the managing editor of JamesSuckling.com Evan Mah. Firstly, the number of disappointing wines was very small although we spread our net wide to take in world-famous producers and rising stars, small estates and the largest in Germany’s most famous wine region. More important though is the slew of wines that scored 95+, including a couple of dry wines and six Riesling Kabinetts. The names of some of the producers up in that exalted realm may well be new to you, and the name on the label of one of those 100 point wines will come as a shock to many: Carl Loewen in Leiwen on the Middle Mosel. Congratulations to all the Mosel producers who have dedicated themselves to quality, originality and individuality in this complex and fascinating region. You made this report possible!

Thank you for the Riesling and for everything else, Annegret!

The work of remembering is never over and done with. So, from 6pm on the evening of Thursday, June 15th I will once again be working as a wine waiter in the Weinstein wine bar in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg and this time the evening will not only be in memory of Roy Metzdorf, the recently deceased guiding spirit of Weinstein. Instead it will have a double function, as I will be pouring the above quintet of dry Riesling GGs from the Reichsgraf von Kesselsatt estate based in Schloss Marienlay in the Mosel  in memory of the estate’s director Annegrat Reh-Gartner who died five months earlier at the beginning of October 2016. These wines (pictured on my desk) are all from the 2011 vintage, and for me the represent the apogee of what Annegret achieved with dry Riesling at Kesselstatt.

She had just become the estate’s director when we first met in May 1984 and we quickly became friends. Unlike some journalists who think that critical distance also needs to be physical and the air occupying it must be icy I never had a problem being friends with winemakers. However, some of them had a serious problem with my friendship when it wasn’t accompanied by rave reviews. Of course, if a winemaker’s friendship would mean that I never criticized their wines or (worse still) only gushed praise for them regardless of how they tasted, then I would be an extremely bad wine journalist. Annegret never expected anything like this, and always wanted to know what I thought about each wine.

Now I am very interested to know what you think about these wines. On June 15th in Weinstein you can taste just one or two of them or you can order a flight of all five. The sites are: Scharzhofberg (Saar), Nies’chen (Ruwer), Juffer-Sonnenuhr, Sonnenuhr and Josephshöfer (all Mittelmosel). I promise you that they are strikingly different from one another and that it really makes sense to try all five. Here is the link to the Weinstein website for more information:

http://weinstein.eu/

Because the Spirit of Riesling is ever renewing itself

Please excuse me. I would have written earlier, but the last weeks my feet barely seemed to touch the ground. My first long and intense tasting trip to the Mosel (and its tributaries the Saar and Ruwer) in several years was the main reason for this. Above you see me pictured at Egon Müller-Scharzhof where the 2015 vintage is spectacular and the 2016 great for the Estate Riesling and Kabinett quality wines. On a very high level this reflects the overall picture of these two vintages, but for the detail you will have to wait a couple of weeks for my forthcoming report on this subject with almost 700 tasting notes on JamesSuckling.com. Suffice to say here that I think the Mosel hasn’t looked stronger in the 35 years I’ve been following it.

I will be away for the next few days around my birthday when I return to Eppstein for the International Riesling Symposium at Kloster Eberbach in the Rheingau on May 29th and 30th. I hope to see you there too, because attending this event will not only give you the opportunity to meet dozens of the world’s best Riesling winemakers, but also to taste some of the finest young and mature, dry and sweet Rieslings in the world. For more information see:

www.international-riesling-symposium.com

Above and beyond this a reorientation of this blog is in the planning. Given the way my own life and the way the world are developing there is no alternative, but to adopt a more personal approach and state the truth the way I see it. In retrospect, I feel that during the last couple of years I sometimes worried too much about being artistic. There’s no time for that kind of stuff any longer. Please be patient as a number of pieces must fall into place before I can implement this plan. Until then may the Riesling Force be with you!

Farewells always ripped me up, but sickness not inner struggles is the only reason that this photographic record of the farewell for Roy Metzdorf (pictured above) of the Weinstein wine bar in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin took two weeks to post. Thanks to Andreas Baldauf for these photographs that so beautifully capture the mixed emotions of that evening. My selection reflects what I saw, and no doubt others would make a different selection with good reason. How could I write anything that could add to what these images say? No idea, so I’ve decided to present them without captions or commentary of any kind. If you are pictured here, but don’t want to appear in this way, then let me know and I will replace the relevant photograph(s). Roy would not want to be idealized here or anywhere else, nor would he want us to be sad (though I’m sure he would entirely understand our grief). I hope the following succeed in reflecting this spirit and something of Roy’s practical and inspirational generosity. Last words: NAMU AMIDA BUTSU

Dear Roy,

Sorry it’s been so long since I was last in touch and now it’s too late for you to read this in the normal way, because on March 4th you died of heart failure. I therefore don’t expect that you know I was in New York City on March 8th when I received an email our good friend Max Krull telling me the sad news. Like many of your other friends I was plunged into a pit of grief, but a few days later I pulled myself out of it, because I knew you wanted me to do that. I feel very glad that we had a couple of great evenings together in Berlin in February, because neither you nor anybody else guessed what was coming. Of course, I regret not having been able to say goodbye, but the way you lived your life without the slightest hesitation and the minimum of compromise made it clear to me that one day it would suddenly all be over. I just didn’t expect it to happen anything like that soon.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 28th I’m taking the train from Eppstein close to Frankfurt back to Berlin for your funeral the following day, Wednesday, March 29th. That will be a rather private and somber event, but from 6pm that evening there’s a bottle party in Weinstein, the wine bar that you ran from the fall of 1993 until your death to celebrate your life. (For those who have forgotten where it is, the address is Lychener Strasse 33, 10437 Berlin and the nearest subway is Eberswalder Strasse on the U2 line). I’m writing this not only to invite anyone and everyone reading this to attend, but also to ask if you can join us in your remarkable spirit, which lives on. I know that because I can sense a small piece of it in me. Everyone needs to bring at least one bottle of wine, if possible something  special, i.e. last bottle of a favorite wine or simply a rare and/or expensive bottle according to your principal of GSKR, Geld spielt keine Rolle, or who cares about the price!

Of course, I still feel your loss. There will be no more wonderful evenings in Weinstein, which you ran with a flair that almost nobody else in the German wine and gastronomic scene could. There will be no more amazing conversations with you from which I learned how, in spite of all the differences in temperament, background, language, upbringing, education and sexual preferences between us, we had so much in common. There will be no more mind-expanding adventures with you in wine regions near and far during which your curiosity helped open my eyes to things that went far beyond the details of winegrowing and winemaking. And from now on I will only be able to see the look in your eye that said, “all walls can and will fall!” in photos like the one above.  It was taken in Weinstein on April 19th last year by Andreas Baldauf and more photographs from that evening can be seen at:

Stuart Pigott im Weinstein Berlin

Enough of the sad stuff though, and on to the positive things which I know you want me to concentrate upon. I’ve been a storyteller since my teens, and all those years of storytelling taught me that every story has a backstory. Now that you’re gone the part of your life I was able to share has become an essential part of the backstory of the rest of my life. I’m only just beginning to discover what that really means, but I feel sure I’m not the only one who feels that way. Exzellent serviert! or excellently served was another of your principals, and although your life was tragically cut short until that moment you excellently served yourself to all of us.

Thank you for the unforgettable service of wine, food, inspiration and love!

RIP, much love and all the best,

Stuart

I have to tell you about a friend of mine who just died that was one of the most wonderful people I ever knew. Nobody I’ve encountered was more generous, open and supportive than Roy Metzdorf. From the fall of 1993 until his sudden death yesterday he ran the Weinstein wine bar in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin, Germany where I took the above photograph on February 20th, 2013. Roy did so much for me there’s no way I can list even the most important things in a couple of paragraphs, never mind explain what that all really means. Roy was a total original and, in no particular order, a remarkable Berliner, East German, Riesling guy, explorer of the big wide world of wine and food, and a thinker who continually stunned me with his penetrating observations. I’m glad that I was able to give some things back to Roy, for example, by introducing him to America beginning in Califronia in 2003. After his first couple of weeks there he only half-jokingly declared that he would become an illegal Mexican immigrant in order to say! I would need to tell a lot more stories like this for those of you who didn’t know Roy to grasp what he was really like. It’s only a metaphor and probably a very bad one, but it feels as if the most beautiful vase in the world has just been smashed. RIP Roy! NAMU AMIDA BUTSU