Category Archives: Wine Telegram

First of all a Big Thank You to everyone who watched WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND on BR3 over the holiday period and particularly to those who emailed me or otherwise took the trouble to send your best wishes, express your excitement about the series or make constructive criticism +++ It’s already the end, but only just the beginning ! +++ The sixth and final episode of the first series went out on 16:30 Central European Time Thursday, 6^nd January, but you can still catch it at www.br-online.de +++ This is surely only the first of many times it will be shown on German television and in only a few weeks I’ll be sitting down with Alexander Saran, my co-author and the director of the series, to begin writing the second series of six shows +++ Maybe you’ll see us whilst we’re on location between May and October +++ You can easily spot us in the vineyards, where we look like the above photograph by camera assistant Florian Bschorr which shows us with Egon Müller during work on the last show of the first series +++ You could also bump into us in a DB train where I’ll no doubt be practicing my still scrappy German grammar +++ Anyone who can’t wait for the second series to make it onto the TV screen in about a year should consult my book WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND in Tre Torri Verlag (see www.tretorri.de) where you can find out a good deal about what will be in the next six shows +++ It’s entirely possible that one or more of the strongest figures from the first series, like Thomas Hertlein from Restaurant Blaue Donau in Munich-Schwabing (www.die-blaue-donau.de) in the photo below taken by cameraman Sorin Dragoi, will make another appearance +++

I will certainly also have some unexpected guests and I’ve got a few serious surprises up my sleeve for the viewers, however the most important thing will remain the same: taking wine seriously, but having as much fun as possible whilst doing so ! +++ Thank you to Thomas Gruber, Petra Felber, Herbert Stiglmaier and Anna Martin at BR, Ernst Geyer of Moviepool and all the people at Megaherz (our producers), plus the WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND team (don’t worry sound man Peter Wuchterl, I haven’t forgotten you !) and all the winegrowers who put up with us turning their homes and workplaces upside-down for believing in that simple, but mould-shattering formula.

Anyone who watched the fifth episode of my TV series WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND on BR3 at 16:30 Central European Time on Sunday, 2^nd January (you can also see it at www.br-online.de) knows that in 2009 I produced my own wine +++ The show was too short to tell the story of that great adventure, but you can find the long version of it in the book of the series from Tre Torri Verlag (see www.tretorri.de) +++ Here there’s only space for the short version starting with the above picture +++ It might look like it was taken yesterday, but it was actually taken by the wine photographer Andreas Durst on Tuesday, 17^th February 2009 +++ That was the day I finished pruning the 10 rows each with 40 Müller-Thurgau vines in the Hasennest vineyard site of Tauberzell in the remote Tauber Valley which Christian and Simone Stahl of Winzerhof Stahl in Auernhofen/Franken (see www.winzerhof-stahl.de) leant me for the year +++ Here the combination of the cool climate, limestone soil and SW exposure makes it possible for the Stahls to produce extraordinarily expressive and minerally wines from the humble Müller-Thurgau grape +++ My goal was to produce a powerful and complex dry wine of Grand Cru / Grosses Gewächs format and what I’d learnt in two semesters as a guest student at the famous wine school of Geisenheim/Rheingau convinced me it was possible +++ Within an hour of this photograph being taken my gloves had disintegrated, my ipod was on strike and water was seeping through my „waterproof“ coat +++

The second picture from Andreas Durst shows my „wine rodeo“ on Saturday, 4^th April, that is the ploughing of the vineyard with the Stahl’s winch-pulled plough, and gives a good idea of how steep the Hasennest is (68%) +++ That and my rejection of herbicides for weed control meant that I had to do this with a hoe, which took me eight hours the first time I did it on Wednesday, 13^th May; the hardest day’s work of my entire life ! +++ The last work days before the harvest were on Monday, 17^th and Tuesday, 18^th August when my friend from Geisenheim Helmut Reh helped me to do the „fine-tuning“ that is to make sure every bunch was well exposed to the morning sun and hung freely with optimum air-circulation to minimize the danger of grey rot destroying the grapes before I could pick them +++ Helmut and a bunch of other friends (thank you everyone again !) came to Tauberzell on Wednesday, 30^th September 2009 – see Durst photo number three below – to help me pick the grapes and to rigorously separate the clean golden berries from those with noble rot+++

The two lots of grapes were crushed and destemmed separately, but the next day, following 15 hours maceration on the skins, pressing and gravity clarification, the juice from the nobly-rotten berries was so clean I combined it with that from the golden berries +++ Fermentation was with a yeast culture from Weingut Luckert in Sulzfeld/Franken and thanks to the vigour of their „wild yeast“ it only took two weeks +++ Then began the slow process of gently guiding the wine to the best possible harmony despite its 14.1% alcoholic content (all natural) would allow +++ Without Christian Stahl’s advice and help that process certainly wouldn’t have lead to such a good result +++ My wine was bottled on Wednesday, 24^th March at which moment I realized just how small the crop had been: 264 bottles or just under 20 hectolitres per hectare! +++ Bottling is a big shock for every wine and mine took months before it started to show well again, so it was good that the official presentation in Berlin didn’t take place until Sunday, 5^th September +++ If you want to taste my wine, then come to one of the presentations of the book WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND (thanks to my co-author Manfred Lüer once again !) in the coming spring, but before that you can catch the last episode of the TV series on BR3 at 16:30 Central European Time on Wednesday, 6^th January.

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Until now many people have known me as the British wine journalist living in Berlin, others as the wine columnist of the FRANKURTER ALLGEMEINE SONNTAGSZEITUNG or as the author of many books on wine (mostly in the German language), but at 16:30 Central European Time on Christmas Day all that will abruptly change +++ Then the first episode of WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND will be shown on the BR3 channel (also on www.br-online.de) and untold thousands of unsuspecting Germans will suddenly think of me as the funny Englishman in the boldly-checked jackets +++ The above photo by camera assisstant Florian Bschorr on location at Weingut Tesch in Langenlonsheim/Nahe with director Alexander Saran (who doubled-up as our make-up artist !) shows me slightly differently from how you’ll see me from the 25^th December on the small screen +++ A German colleague once said to me, „one claims that one doesn’t want to burn down the forest, then you find yourself playing with matches“ and that’s exactly how I feel about this TV-project +++ I always said that I didn’t seek fame, just wanted more people to read my work, but now I’ve done something which stands a serious chance of turning me into a houshold name +++ Maybe it was a good thing that due to the travel chaos I couldn’t fly to Munich on Monday morning for the press conference for the first series (of 6 episodes) of WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND, because that way the newspaper journalists couldn’t compare the on-screen Stuart Pigott with the real me and find the latter lacking +++ It turns out we’ve already created a controversy before a single second has been broadcast, a couple of paranoid people in the organic wine scene threatening legal action against us on the basis of a couple of words in a BR press release ! +++ On the other hand we feel the growing public anticipation for the first show about wine on German TV that dares to entertain as well as inform, also with a picture quality far above the norm thanks to cameraman Sorin Dragoi +++ When you consider how German television is stuffed full of dumb cookery shows and narcissistic celebrity chefs, it’s absurd that wine has gained so little space and even less imagination during the last years, but that, of course, is our Big Chance +++ This was something we didn’t think about much on location though, because there was always so much pressure on +++ It only really hit me when I was in the studio of Megaherz in Munich at the beginning of the month to record the voice overs with recording engineer St. Ingo +++ In spite of the poor quality screen I saw the cut version of our work on, at the end of the first day’s work I suddenly thought, „Shit, it doesn’t only function very well, it is also very different from everything else I’ve seen on TV lately !“ +++ Of course, whether you like it or think it’s shit, is up to you and the last thing I want to do is to push you in any direction, but take a look at the second picture from Florian Bschorr and tell me you don’t want to see the first show

+++ Merry TV Christmas and a Happy TV New Year !

I „only“ write about wine, but again and again one thing leads to another and before I know it I’m a long way from home and from wine. My wife and I returned from a wine tour through Hungary and neighbouring Burgenland/Austria just in time for the press conference for WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND on Monday, 20^th December at the Oblomov Theatre in the Glockenbach district of Munich. That might look like cutting it a bit fine, but the first show goes out at 16:30 on Saturday, 25^th December on BR3 (also on www.br-online.de) so the newspaper journalists and bloggers have plenty of time to damn or praise us as they see fit. Our wine tour focused upon the red wines of the indigenous Kékfrankos grape, also known as Blaufränkisch in Austria and Lemberger in Germany. Along the way we took in as many other things as possible and by the end of our sensational tasting at Vienna pork butcher Roman Thum (see www.thum-schinken.at) just before catching the plane home I worried that having consumed too much meat, bacon, ham and sausage from the Hungarian Mangalitza pig might make me turn in to one of these woolly swines ! (see the photo above) Roman Thum also had an important thought for us: it was with wine that the quality revolution in Austria began, then came cheese, followed by bread and meat. Maybe it was „only“ wine, but it ignited some kind of chain reaction there which continues to this day, and from our experiences in Hungaria I would say that wine is doing the same there. Our Kékfrankos days were organized by Zoli Heimann of the Heimann estate in Székszárd whose single vineyard 2008 is wonderfully elegant (see the photo below and www.heimann.hu).

Most of the truly exciting new Hungarian wines Zoli helped us experience are still produced in tiny quantities and many disappear completely into a network of wine enthusiasts around Budapest entrepreneur, winegrower and wine merchant József Szentesi (see www.kezmuvesborok.hu). The wines of Franz Weninger Jr. in Sopron offer a rare chance to experience authentic Hungarian Kékfrankos and his rich and spicy 2009 from the Spern Steiner vineyard site ought to make the wine world take notice when released (see www.weninger.com) How long will it take Hungary to catch up with Burgenland ? Our last wine tasting, at Moric / Roland Velich (see www.moric.at) in Grosshöflein, rammed home how new the Blaufränkisch revolution in Burgenland is. It dates to the 2002 vintage of the Neckenmarkt „Alte Reben“ from Moric; today a cult wine praised by all the heavyweight wine critics of the world. Thankfully that success hasn’t gone to Roland Velich’s head and he helped his wife Dagmar cook a great dinner for us. The last photo shows him serving pumpkin cooked with the incredibly aromatic Pannonia Saffron from Hannes Pintenitz (see www.pannonischer-safran.at)

I’ll be trying hard to follow his good example during the coming weeks as WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND beams my lean face, boldly-checked jackets and English accent into the living rooms of thousands of unsuspecting Germans.

The picture above captures the magic moment on Friday morning in Bernkastel-Kues/Mosel when Hendrik Hering (SDP), the Minister in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz responsible for winegrowing and roadbuilding recieved the prize for HYPOCRITE OF THE YEAR 2010 +++ Hering won it for claiming to have the best interests of Mosel winegrowers at heart whilst pushing the construction of the so-called MOSEL BRIDGE (Hochmoselübergang & B50neu, to give it its full ugly German name) +++ With the trophy came a petition bearing the signatures of 23,000 people (including me) protesting that this titanic concrete white elephant will not only damage tourism in the region, but also threaten some of the best vineyard sites in the region, begining with the world-famous Wehlener Sonnenuhr +++ From this and other pictures taken Friday at the prize-giving ceremony it looks to me as if Herr Hering first tried to laugh it all off, then ended up feeling rather uncomfortable when confronted with the scale and seriousness of opposition to this mad, bad project +++ Perhaps that’s not surprising, since rumours have it that privately he’s not behind the MOSEL BRIDGE and is only pushing the absurd project in order to further his political career +++ My guess is that behind his polished public mask Hendrik Hering feels a ghastly stab of pain every time a member of the opposition to this monstrosity brings an argument which successfully exposes the emptiness of his own claims of what it will do for the region +++ A few days ago I went to have a look for myself at the first scars being carved into the landscape above the Mosel wine villages of Graach and Zeltingen +++ The picture below shows me in front of one of the first „construction“ sites +++ Why have I got a smile on my face in spite of the scene of destruction behind me ? +++ Because I was being shown around by two leading figures in the opposition and they made me feel sure WE WILL OVERCOME ! +++ Not only are British-born Sarah Washington and German Knut Aufermann intellectually light years ahead of the government of Rheinland-Pfalz, but Sarah has already won political battles that looked far more hopeless than this one +++ If Hendrik Hering were really clever, he’d cancel this absurd project and engage Sarah Washington as his campaign manager, as that would advance his career far more effectively than his present course +++

Scroll down further and have a look at the photo of Sarah and Knut protecting one of the threatened trees +++ I mean, who looks more sympathetic to you, the grey man in the grey suit who has just become the HYPOCRITE OF THE YEAR 2010 or my friends ? +++ Rumours also say that the tenders from construction companies for building the MOSEL BRIDGE all lie at or over 200 Million Euros; far above the 105 Million which the Herings ministry have planned for it +++ Where is all that extra money going to come from ? +++ I’d say that Friday was a very bad day for Hendrik Hering, but to be honest I don’t feel any sympathy, because his prize is well deserved and he knows it !