“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!
sounds like fun