Germany & Austria Part IV

Germany & Austria Part IV January 9, 2009: The red wines of Germany are coming on strong with sales and demand shooting skyward the last 5 years or more.  Maybe it's me not getting to taste them or perhaps global warming allowing the reds to ripen fully, but in either case I am really excited about German red wine.  At the Schäfer estate we meet up with Volker Schafer and his father Karl-Ludwig.  The Schafers are red wine and specifically, Pinot Noir producers, and we have featured their Pinot Noir Spatlese and Auslese back home.  This cellar is one of the few we visit which is not polished for press photos, it's wet, dark, old, covered in black mold - I love it.  The wines are the exact opposite - clean, bright, fresh, full bodied and not oaked.  The dad had a friend many, many years ago who gave him some Pinot Noir vines, so he stuck them in the ground. Now they are one of the top red wine producers in the area.  These guys were doing German red wines before the color was invented.  We taste Blauer Portuguiser, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Dornfelder, and Cabernet Sauvignon- all reds.  Then we go to their whites.  Cool stuff like a Siegerrebe, Kanzler and Pinot Blanc to name a few.  This afternoon we finish off 25 wines and finish with a 1971 Portuguieser Spatlese (38 year old red wine).  This was the very first vintage of red Portuguiser Volker's dad harvested.

Next stop in the Mosel is to an old favorite and friend, Stefan Bollig of Bollig Lehnert. We sit in his kitchen with his lovely wife Jill and taste through Riesling and Pinot Blanc. Stefan’s style is different. He is outright and upfront about liking sweet wine. His wines all tend to show sweetness on the finish even if they are labeled dry. However, he builds his wines using traditional techniquues which means the wines show better several years down the road. Stefan wants to make wine for future drinking. The market often demands the latest and greatest, and he struggles with this because his best wines right now to be drinking are 2003, 2004 and 2005, not the 2006, 2007s which customers ask for because they are the "freshest."

Bollig-Lehnert still uses a designation called Hochgewäch on the label "special designation" for a stand out wine in a vintage. The problem, and there’s always a hitch, especially in German wine law, is this special designation can be for sweet or dry wine and doesn’t help the customer know what the wine tastes like. It’s just "special". The press murdered the German 2003 vintage, but as I taste some 2003s this trip, they are really coming around.  I think the press got this wrong and I will go on record now.  Stefan stands by his 2003s confidently and they are really drinking nicely today.  He treats us to a bottle of his 1994 Riesling Kabinett Feinherb. This is remarkable and shows “all growed up flavors” of shitake mushrooms, lemon pound cake and ginger, and it’s totally dry on the finish.

Stephan’s wife, Jill, is a trained chef and she prepares a wonderful steak lunch with a sauce of port jelly and riesling auslese over a greens salad with boiled potatoes. The meat is cooked

 perfectly and a great example of red meat with white wine pairing. We end the meal with a Beerenauslese which is honey and liquid golden raisin in the glass. It's elegant, not heavy or cloying and just sweet enough to finish the meal.

Without haste we are off to another Mosel property, the Studert-Prum estate to see Gerd. Prum is a common name in Germany and especially in wines from the Mosel. My first question is "who are all the Prums?" Gerd explains in the immediate area some are related cousins and such.  The largest estate is JJ Prum, followed by SA Prum, coming in third our Studert-Prum and finally the smallest related wine Prum is Weins-Prum. The amazing thing is that all four of them are Pradikat (top quality) producers and all from the Mosel and all with different styles.

We dive in with 12 wines to work through on the table. Sitting at a small round wood table in the entry way of their home, I am surrounded by antiques Gerd’s father has collected over years. He apologizes for the clutter. I am perfectly happy to sit amongst treasure going back decades and wish I had more time to look at every little trinket.  We start red with his Dornfelder Feinherb wine. The Dornfelder grape continues to show quality from good producers (see the first post from Germany, Day I). This example is grapey with moderate tannin, light acidity and has a hint of residual sugar in a pleasing way. Dornfelder tends to grow abundantly and Gerd says the challenge is pruning back regularly to keep yields low.

As we continue tasting, I learn that the EU is considering forcing all wineries that chaptalize (adding sugar at the time of fermentation to boost alcohol levels, but never used to produce a pradikat wine) using rectified grape concentrate. It seems that Italy has a lot of grapes, especially in the south, that they can’t use.  So the grapes are made into a neutral

concentrate and they want everyone to use the stuff around all of Europe.  Currently, beet sugar or cane sugar is used. Of course most wineries are against this measure. It doesn’t benefit anyone but the producer of the concentrate and the there’s the thought of a German wine containing 10% Italian grapes! I also learn that German wine law approved the use of “Private Reserve” on a bottle of wine starting in December 2008. Of course this has no meaning and once again the consumer is presented with yet another confusing wine label term. Sort of like Reserve having no legal meaning in the US on a wine label. Humph.

We finish with a treat, the 1997 Riesling Auslese. The wine is a mere 11 years old but sure tastes fresh like a fruit cocktail with a little mushroom and lively acidity.  Gerd walks me through the cellar where I can see my breath it's so cold.

The Wehlen area of the Mosel is planted to Riesling, of which 99% is ungrafted original rootstock.  I look at the trellising and see the vines are trained straight up on poles rather than in rows on wires, typical of this area.

And off we go toward the Rheinhessen.  So much time, so little wine. Scratch that.  Reverse it.

 - Salamanzar

Germany & Austria Part III

Germany & Austria Part III - January 8, 2009.   Will someone please put on the heat around here?  I am drinking cold Riesling all day long in -5º C weather.  Germany heats their rooms with radiators, yes, radiators.   Do you know how long it takes to heat a cold room with a radiator at this temp?  We could make a killing installing heat pumps and vents in this country.

After Frank Heyden, Derek lets me take an hour catnap as the diesel Peugeot gurgles off to Ockfen in the Saar region, and the Dr. Fischer estate.  We are greeted by the smiling and friendly, Karen Fischer, head of winemaking at her family’s home.  Sitting at the round tasting table in the living room/tasting room/office, we run through nine wines including tank samples of the 2008 vintage still working after harvest, and then a glorious 1973 Riesling Spatlese. More on that later.  The funny thing about Karen’s wines- even the sweetish ones taste dry, and that’s her style.  Lots of acidity in proportion to any residual sugar so the palate tastes nearly dry, or in many cases it is dry.   The wines are aged in giant 1,000 liter wood casks, used year after year. The wood does not impart flavor but keeps the wines round and lets them breathe through the barrel’s pores over time.  In the cellar we see these giant, dark brown/almost black casks sighing with the new 2008 vintage slowly coming to life.  The yeast are doing their thang and I notice the dripping water and icicles on the ceiling as we are underground.
Karen tours us through the “old” wines, laying in darkness like bones in a tomb. The bottles sit in cement cubicles with yellowed paper tags indicating the vintages: 1945, 1958, 1971, 1983... Some bins have just one bottle lying in wait. The corks are looking mealy, some bottles are leaking, ullage levels are low (air space in the neck of the bottle as wine evaporates) and the cobwebs and dust all make me feel like I am invading their privacy and peering into the opening of Egyptian tomb. Karen is gracious to pull one 1973 Spatlese and we go up to uncork it. The bottle is dead, so she makes a second trip to retrieve a replacement bottle and the nectar inside is a golden brown with tobacco and spritzy, lively acidity (after 35 years!), cinnamon, orange peel, and tastes fairly dry. What a treat.
Her backyard is the famous vineyard, Bockstein and she lets me take a photo of her with her “children” in the background and her warm smile up front. At dinner we discuss the new law allowing the use of just “Mosel” as a designation on a wine label. Previously, the wines always said: Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, encompassing all three areas. Today the Mosel guys use Mosel, the Saar guys use Mosel but add “Saar Riesling” to the label and the Ruwer? We’ll they are like me, left out in the cold of Germany. The Ruwer wines have to say Mosel and can’t use their name on the bottle. As a result the wines of the Ruwer are nearly extinct. Ah, wine laws. When someone figures them out, let me know.

Wednesday morning we’re off to the Mosel region to taste with a new to me winery, Karp-Schreiber. We meet the son and father at the winery tasting room. Like Frank Heyden, Alwin Karp's son has gone to oenology school and is apprenticing with wineries around the world to bring back ideas. He has done a stint at Flower’s winery in CA and just got back from Spain.

 

This winter he is about to leave for Australia while their German vines sleep in the winter cold.

The winery was established in 1664 and today they have just 4.5 hectares of vineyards including part of the "Grand Cru" Juffer-Sonnenuhr vineyard.   Outside their bay window I see the famous sundial in the Sonnenhur vineyard.  The giant sun dial sits on the side of the hill for time keeping on sunny days, which is not now.  The big joke in the town is when the newspapers announce that the dial has been changed from the winter to the summer correction, like our daylight savings. Apparently it makes the tourists ask lots of questions.

I am presented with a piece of slate (soon to adorn our overly crowded coffee table at the wine shop back home) from this famous vineyard area with a small hole in the center.  These fossils are from the works using hand tools to break the ground for planting many, many years ago (1700s) and the metal picks would puncture small pieces.   The black and blue slate is a defining soil characteristic of the Mosel. It heats during the day from the sun and reflects energy back to the vines at night, it adds a flinty quality to the vines, and with the vineyard’s southern facing exposure towards the Mosel river, the climate is moderated for optimal ripening. This slate is also the roofing tile found on roof tops throughout the entire Mosel region.

We plow through 16 wines this morning finishing. They are fantastic and completely different than the styles we have enjoyed so far on the trip. I am excited to bring a new winery back to NC this spring from the Mosel. We finish with the 2006 Juffer-Sonnenuhr vineyard Trockenbeerenauslese, or TBA for short. This wine is only made every few years and in small quantities. It is nearly always in a half bottle and wicked expensive. The selected grapes have suffered through Botrytis or Noble Rot, decreasing their moisture content and increasing their sugar ratios. The grape juice is so thick it takes much longer to ferment. This one is a carpet of honey, golden raisin, flan and a touch of caramelized pineapple. It’s a dessert on its own. The acidity is so high, that the wine actually finishes very clean and not syrupy, a work of art. 

Curiously, in the 2005 harvest they attempted to make a TBA wine. The grapes came in at 265º Oechsle (This is the measurement of the grape must sugar weight. As a

 comparison, his regular wines come in around 90º-100º and can be sweet. They let the grape must ferment for months as the yeast trudged through the sugar only to come up with 1% alcohol, a no go. Wanting to be helpful, I suggest the ancient technique of pouring in a Red Bull to jump start the yeast, but they had not heard of this used in Germany. I shrug. Hmm, guess the young Karp has more apprenticing to do.  

 - Salamanzar

Germany & Austria Part II

January 7th, 2009 - I arrive in Frankfurt safe and sound from the overnight flight. Germany is six hours ahead of North Carolina, so I need to stay awake until bedtime to avoid the jetlag.  No problem I feel great. I get through baggage and customs, walk out the door to the curb and wham! The frigid, cold air fills my nostrils and goosebumps cover my skin. I meet our German Estates contact, Derek Vinnicombe and he quickly informs me that the day started at -16º C, but it’s already warmed to -14ºC so things are looking up.  

Derek came to Germany from England in the 1970s for “two years,” and never left.  His English and German are perfect and he lives in Germany full time for his business. Derek helps us find the estate producers and is our contact for getting the wines exported to the US. He piles me and the baggage into the van and woosh were off on the Autobahn heading toward the Rheinhessen for the first tasting. Germany is the only country still without a speed limit on the highway.   The Renault 4 cylinder fires away. It’s about 9 AM German time.

As we drive, I make some small talk and say, “wow, there’s snow on the ground, is this normal?" Derek replies, “We haven’t seen snow here in years.” I reply, “so I guess the eiswein will be great this year.” “Oh, no,” Derek quips, “It’s too cold to make eiswein.” Hmm, I think to myself. Eiswein = Ice wine and it’s too cold. “So Derek, what do you mean too cold and first snow in years?” Derek explains this is the coldest weather Germany has seen in almost 30 years. At this temperature the grapes are like rocks and can’t be squeezed. It actually has to be warmer to make eiswein. I am quickly surveying my suitcase clothing in my head. Jacket, hat, gloves, socks, long underwear.... I hope I will be covered...literally!

Our first stop is in Oppenheim with the young, dynamic rock-star winemaker, Frank Heyden of Dr. Heyden vineyards. These wines are a favorite of ours and Frank has recently taken over the winemaking from his father to completely re-invent the estate. His passion, enthusiasm and energy are boundless and we truly appreciate all that he is doing to make changes. Not too long ago the Rheinhessen region was a dying wine region. The old wine producers were stuck in their ways and the wines were decent, but not stand-outs. Then along comes the new guard, people like Frank, and suddenly the Rheinhessen is the talk of Germany. Frank has traveled the world to see how other regions make wine. He brings back ideas, concepts and new techniques to improve the family wines and takes the wines in new directions. Very exciting stuff, and he always has that sort of devilish grin when I ask questions like, “you aren’t planning on making a sekt (German “champagne”) too are you Frank?” And he disappears into the winery only to come skipping back with a bottle of Brut Prestige Riesling Sekt which is dry, fizzy and simply fantastic to drink. And I was only joking.  And Frank is younger than me.  I hate when that happens.

Frank takes me through no less than 13 wines before lunch. I taste current vintages, and tank samples of 2008 not yet in the bottle. His Dornfelder (red wine) is a blockbuster! I have never had such powerful, intense and beautiful Dornfelder, or German red wine for that matter.  This stuff is deep reddish, purple in the glass and I immediately think of zinfandel sans high alcohol or oak. Spicy, peppery, juicy and totally dry, Frank has that grin and explains for years Dornfelder was the bulk, grocery red, junk wine produced by many large wineries. It’s the sort of “white zin” of Germany (my words, not his).  But Frank sees potential after visiting Burgundy and Romanée-Conti, and how they train the vines on single canes.  So Frank being Frank comes back to Germany to take a vine that normally produces 200+ hl/ha of juice and crops it down to 85 hl/ha or less. [A vineyard will boast about taking less fruit, but higher quality fruit from their vines. The amount of fruit the vines are producing is measured in how many hectoliters of juice per every hectare (2.47 acres) is pressed. The lower the volume of juice, the lower the yield and theoretically the higher the quality] And that’s just one example of his innovation.

Frank is also a serious red wine maker and makes outstanding Pinot Noir; the new 2006 Pinot is marvelous.   The price is holding thanks to the Euro weakening so we hope to have some 2006 in Wine Authorities soon.  We have sold two shipments of his 2005 in our first year of business.  The 2008 rosé is this tank sample state is very pale and almost whitish-pink. Frank says that Blanc de Noir (white wine from a red grape) is fashionable in Germany right now, and what do I think about keeping the wine light?  I love the flavor and aromas, but explain that we have a tough enough time teaching that not all pink wine is sweet and we stock the dry pink ones.  Now you want me to sell a white Pinot Noir blend to people?  And in about 2 minutes we all agree to make the wine pink like last year. Frank will be bottling the 2008 rosé for us in two weeks. Expect to see it late spring at Wine Authorities. And the morning carries on to whites until we have to break for lunch.

Frank’s mom is very kind to us and has prepared a deliciously sweet/savory/spicy carrot and hot pepper soup, perfect with Riesling. We move on to locally farm raised and smoked trout which Frank ordered and they smoked for us the day before, along with a variety of German sausages/cold cuts. We sit in the family dining room with a giant bay window looking lieterally out his backyard at the famous Sacktrager and Kreuz vineyards.  Frank likes to mountain bike through them.  I have to pinch myself as I am eating lunch with Bono, er I mean Frank, and his mom and Derek while looking at Red Rocks Stadium, err I mean, at his backyard.  And this is why I suffer through these things...

It’s around 1:30 PM and we have to head to Ockfen to visit Karen Fischer at Dr. Fischer’s Estate. The jet lag is setting in and my head is bobbing like a bobble-Seth doll.  To be continued...  - Salamanzar

Germany & Austria Part I

January 6, 2009 13:41 - Crucial first part of the trip to Germany and Austria has been accomplished. I had my first meal at The Varsity in downtown Atlanta. Key planning put me into Atlanta with a four hour layover before flying out to Frankfurt, plenty of time to grab lunch. A 20 minutes ride on the MARTA train from the airport to the North Avenue stop put me within a 3 minute walk to The Varsity, the worlds largest drive-in. If you haven’t been, they have been family owned since 1928 and the place covers two acres of land.   On a Georgia football day, they serve 30,000 customers and over two miles of hotdogs,  300 gallons of chili, 5,000 fried pies and they are the worlds largest Coca-Cola outlet.

I already knew what I wanted as I approached the shiny stainless steel counter tops. The row of red paper boat-hat cashiers were waiting for customers as they filed in. When a cashier has a pause with no line in front of them, they start to yell out the signature “what’ll ya have? what’ll ya have?” That’s your cue to jump up and shout your order. I went with the combo deal of: chili cheese dog, chili cheese burger, F.O. (don’t call it a frosted orange), fries, and hot fried apple pie.
About three minutes later, I took my red tray back to an open table, gathered plenty of napkins and sat down with the bountiful goodness. These are actually small portions and I can see why someone with a bigger appetite would order two or three burgers at a time. They are only slightly larger than a “slider” which is about two bites. I grabbed the gynormous squeeze bottle of ketchup on the table and slathered the fries before digging in. The Varisty experience was enriching and girthening.

The burger was not a thick and juicy medium rare, but more of wafer thin disc on a soft bun with the heavily cumin laden chili. The hot dog was all beef, but one of the skinny weenies on a soft bun with chili and a slice of american cheese. The FO was a tall cup of orange creamsicle which had to thaw enough before I could consume and the fries were luke warm and a few of them a little under done. None-the-less, don’t get me wrong I loved it and just being there goes a long way. The apple pie was a miniature calzone of gooey apple filling with a chunk or two of apple and very oily from the deep frying experience, but it went down easily and happily. As I sat and let the FO thaw to a slush I decided I had to go back for a side of onion rings and these were fantastic. Large rings, very thin tempura like batter and now I felt complete. The rings were the final piece leaving me happy and fond of my Varsity experience as I rode MARTA back to the airport. Now onto Frankfurt... To be continued. - Salamanzar

Blessed with Bacon

I received my holiday gift early from the Grand Poobah - a bacon sampler from the Grateful Palate.   The four bacons I received are: Nodine's  Smokehouse 10 garlic clove and Nodine's Double Smoked from CT; Edwards Cinnamon Apple Virginia Bacon; Loveless Cafe's Hot and Spicy Jalapeño bacon from Nashville; and Oscar's Applewood Smoked from NY. Having  visited the Loveless Cafe years ago, this bacon has brought back special memories.  You must go there for the biscuits, jam, bacon and nostalgia.  The celebrity photos and stories are worth the trip alone.

We started with Nodine's 10 clove garlic bacon for the past two days.  This is a slab of bacon cured with a garlic emulsion and actual whole cloves of garlic studded in the meat. The perfume has made my house smell, well heavenly, thus instructing the family not to open any windows or doors in the house to best preserve the aromas as long as possible.  I am not sure how to describe this bacon.  My writing skills won't do it justice.  It's like writing about your first kiss 

or my first sip of a Cote Rotie.  Two loves, two passions combined into one - garlic and bacon.  I may have to save the fat and put a little on my wrists before going to work each day.  This bacon has a subtle sweetness followed by mellowed sublime garlic flavors which leads to a smoked finish.  Absolutely divine, this is a dream come true.  If you haven't figured out what to give the foodie in your family consider this bacon sampler.  I now know how much the Grand Poobah really loves me.  

Maybe 2009 should be the year Wine Authorities gets into the specialty bacon business?  We could fly in 1 lb slabs from around the country and sell them to other Durham bacon lovers. - Salamanzar

Rare FORMAGGIO TORO UBRIACO (drunken bull cheese) arrives!

Durham cheese maker Alessandra Trompeo has quickly received much international acclaim representing American raw cheese makers at the Slow Food Terre Madre event in Turin, Italy. Her "Duchessa" is our best selling cheese and she is a helluva nice lady to boot. We are proud to be the exclusive source for her latest cheese, Toro Ubriaco, or "Drunken Bull" in honor of our fair Bull City!

This cow's milk cheese is an aromatic, washed rind cheese, encased in Sangiovese must (the skins and seeds left over after the red wine making process) so it imparts a winey, fruity taste. Four and a half months in the making, we are extremely excited to debut this exotic, complex cheese starting today. It is made in one pound squares with grape skins intact and cut in half to show the inside and make it a more convenient size for couples. The cost is $21.99/pound (about $11 a piece).

ALESSANDRA HAS MADE ONLY 25 OF THESE CHEESES (50 halves). So please come soon if you are interested in getting some. They will sell out quickly!

Here's Alessandra's notes on the history of this type of cheese:

"The Drunken Bull has its origin in Eastern Italy.  Several folk stories tell how the cheese was born. Someone links its origin to WWI when the farmers, trying to defend their stocks from the soldiers’ raids, would hide the cheese under grape skins. Others think that lack of resources is the main reason why the cheese was born. Being the oil to treat the cheese rinds very expensive, several families of farmers would use grape skins to keep the rinds moist and clean. The result was a very aromatic cheese that would last much longer.
There is also a story about a crooked cheesemaker who tried to hide some wheels from his boss dumping them into a fermenting must barrel. The cheese became then the strong point of that dairy and soon the trick of aging the cheese in grape skins became a habit in many dairies of the area."

Way Over Due

Hi there and I apologize for the blog being left behind in the last month.  We are way over due for an entry.  November and December are the two busiest retail wine months and while that's not a great excuse, it's our reality.  

The "State of Things" radio show's impact has been tremendous and we welcome all the new customers streaming in from around the Triangle and beyond.  We are truly flattered and humbled by the number of people who have come to the store because they heard us on the radio and actually thought we sounded all right.  As our good friend Sally put it, "we really have a face for radio."  

More importantly we are getting our message out.  We make no claim that all things corporate are bad.  Heck we are an LLC and the wineries we represent are for-profit entities.  It's also difficult for someone to change paradigms when there is not immediate physical evidence to prove the contrary.  If we had a bottle of wine with an ingredient list that read like a Twinkie wrapper vs. a second bottle which stated, "made from grapes," the evidence would be compelling.  Or if we had a person take a sip of wine and immediately start to convulse and then take a sip from another bottle and feel fine, we would really have something.  But the reality is that we eat and drink things which don't necessarily have immediate short term effects and therefore we don't really see the harm or necessarily believe the item is "bad" for us even though long term effects can be considered harmful.

Probably the most compelling evidence we see on a day to day level are the people who claim no headaches or ill effects while drinking wine in small towns of Europe, but have serious side effects when coming back to the States and drinking a large corporate wine from a grocery store.  We all have our sensitivity levels and tolerance levels.  Some feel it, some don't.  

The simple beauty of wine is that you actually can make it from grapes.  Using the other additives are not necessary.  That should be argument enough.  For example, if you could buy an apple pie made from apples, flour, butter, sugar and spices vs. the pie made with loads of stabilizers, emulsifiers, and preservatives, and they both taste good, both cost the same, why choose the chemically added pie?

Maybe we need to have a 30 day challenge.  If you currently drink some of the big brand wines on a regular basis, try drinking anyone's small producer, family owned wine for 30 days and see how you feel.  Of course the opposite would work too, but I won't suggest drinking a Big Liquor Company (BLC) brand for 30 days.  I already know how you will feel.   Would John McEnroe be our spokesperson? - Salamanzar