Day one of the Grands Jours de Bourgogne, a biennial wine trade fair in multiple venues in Burgundy. There were apparently a lot of complaints about the stacking of events on two days after the previous edition in 2008, the first time I attended, but nothing seems to have changed.
Not only are the most appealing events crammed into two days, but the first two days of the Grands Jours clash with the last two days of Prowein in Germany.
Oh well, there is no lack of people focused on Burgundy, as I found out when I turned up in Chablis on day one at a respectable hour -- after midday -- to find most people's snouts already in the trough of free grub (and getting their photo taken with a pig on a spit, appropriately enough).
That seemed like good timing to get around some of the more intriguing of the 90-odd producers on hand, but my mood was soured when I found their were no guidebooks available. These have all the producers' contact information, what they are exhibiting, and more importantly where they are located in the three tasting rooms.
How could you not have one book for every person who registered, I asked. We did, they responded. Well, clearly not, I said. But more people turned up than we expected, they said. Stuff them, you should have kept a guide for those who registered in advance, I replied. Well, finally came the admission, we didn't think everyone who registered would turn up, but they have, and that's why we don't have enough books.
I borrowed one from an acquaintance who was off to have a rice cracker for lunch, and proceeded to tick off my major targets. I was looking for a new producer to replace the cad Jean-Claude Bessin, who sold to another importer after agreeing to work exclusively with me in Australia. That importer subsequently told JC that I was selling his wines too cheaply and he refused to sell any more to me. So there you go: not only was the other importer happy to make 20% more per bottle at wholesale, but the producer actively encouraged such extravagance. He didn't seem to care that I was using refrigeration for transport and storage, or that I had his wines listed in several top Sydney and Melbourne restaurants.
Sadly for me the two standout producers of the day already seemed to be tied up. I don't want to cut anyone else's grass, and after checking with a respected colleague that he was going ahead with an order, I confirmed to the winemaker that I wasn't interested. The wines were fantastic, and cheap, and he made it more difficult by offering to sell me the same wine under different labels! I would hate that if he did that behind my back, so I was happy to walk away.
I eventually made a shortlist of four or five other lovely producers to revisit in a couple of weeks, and after wearing myself out with 200 or so samples, I pulled up stumps and dashed back the hour and a bit to Beaune for refreshing bottles of champagne and riesling with Gav & Gen.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Day 10: One for the road
Nice little hotel last night but it could have been better if I had known the internet modem was in a cupboard down the hall and I could have reset it myself every hour that it seemed to lock up.
Finally got connected and caught up with a ton of emails before skipping breakfast and driving north to a quaint restaurant for lunch -- along with about 20 families wheeling their grandmothers out for the day!
We had pre-selected two very interesting wines, and decided to have two courses to go with them. I had a lovely fish and scallop dish with truffled potato and rice for entree, along with a wine I'd never had before -- a 2004 Faiveley Corton Charlemagne. Quite rich -- you'd be tempted to call it an oxidative style, although it's one of those ones that seems to get leaner and tighter with air. A bit of the 04 celery/pistacchio character that I don't mind. An interesting wine at the very least, if not particularly long, focused and intense. We saved almost half a bottle for later.
Main course was young duck with foie gras, and the accompaniment was a 2004 DRC Vosne Romanee 1er cru Duvalt Blochet, which I believe comes from the young vines of DRC's various grand crus. Not at all green, with interesting spicy notes, quite a supple, easy-drinking style, rather than a wow wine.
Full and ready for a nap, but it's not to be. We buy an 06 Duvalt and an 06 Coche Dury Volnay 1er cru for later inspection and hit the road to Beaune. Well, a little detour to Domaine David Clark to pick up some wine I had stashed there and to share some wine and tales with David and his father (who was busy at the time building Vine Buggy Mark VI).
We polished off the two lunch wines, which both looked better rather than worse for the three-hour drive, then enjoyed an 08 Bourgogne from David -- such a juicy, clean, fresh, pure, fine-tannined drink, and I will be getting only 10 cases for all of Australia! -- plus two German reds from Schafer-Frohlich. These were both interesting and quite impressive, but I don't want to give away what they were just yet. Oh ok, an 06 Nahe Spatburgunder (pinot noir) and an 05 cabernet sauvignon from the Pfalz. Really well done! I might import a bit of these as an oddity.
We tore ourselves away for dinner at Gav and Gen's pad in Beaune, and forced down a bottle of Vouette et Sorbee Fidele champagne to celebrate my first night back in Burgundy. It's a big, rich, oaky pinot-dominant champagne with low fizz that really needs food. A lot more delicate than the 04 disgorgement, but a style that will divide the punters, I reckon. Love it or leave it.
Finally got connected and caught up with a ton of emails before skipping breakfast and driving north to a quaint restaurant for lunch -- along with about 20 families wheeling their grandmothers out for the day!
We had pre-selected two very interesting wines, and decided to have two courses to go with them. I had a lovely fish and scallop dish with truffled potato and rice for entree, along with a wine I'd never had before -- a 2004 Faiveley Corton Charlemagne. Quite rich -- you'd be tempted to call it an oxidative style, although it's one of those ones that seems to get leaner and tighter with air. A bit of the 04 celery/pistacchio character that I don't mind. An interesting wine at the very least, if not particularly long, focused and intense. We saved almost half a bottle for later.
Main course was young duck with foie gras, and the accompaniment was a 2004 DRC Vosne Romanee 1er cru Duvalt Blochet, which I believe comes from the young vines of DRC's various grand crus. Not at all green, with interesting spicy notes, quite a supple, easy-drinking style, rather than a wow wine.
Full and ready for a nap, but it's not to be. We buy an 06 Duvalt and an 06 Coche Dury Volnay 1er cru for later inspection and hit the road to Beaune. Well, a little detour to Domaine David Clark to pick up some wine I had stashed there and to share some wine and tales with David and his father (who was busy at the time building Vine Buggy Mark VI).
We polished off the two lunch wines, which both looked better rather than worse for the three-hour drive, then enjoyed an 08 Bourgogne from David -- such a juicy, clean, fresh, pure, fine-tannined drink, and I will be getting only 10 cases for all of Australia! -- plus two German reds from Schafer-Frohlich. These were both interesting and quite impressive, but I don't want to give away what they were just yet. Oh ok, an 06 Nahe Spatburgunder (pinot noir) and an 05 cabernet sauvignon from the Pfalz. Really well done! I might import a bit of these as an oddity.
We tore ourselves away for dinner at Gav and Gen's pad in Beaune, and forced down a bottle of Vouette et Sorbee Fidele champagne to celebrate my first night back in Burgundy. It's a big, rich, oaky pinot-dominant champagne with low fizz that really needs food. A lot more delicate than the 04 disgorgement, but a style that will divide the punters, I reckon. Love it or leave it.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Day 9: More eating
A pretty relaxed schedule today -- my first day off in a week. With Gav & Gen over for the weekend, we drove to one of our favourite restaurants in Alsace for lunch. One course each and a bottle of Coche Dury 2005 Meursault which unfortunately wasn't a touch on a bottle I had a year previously. Thankfully it was only a quarter of the price it goes for in Australia.
We then drove to a little village to check out a special wine shop but it was closed, so we shuffled on to Munster to pick up some stinky cheese. It was a bargain at 11 euros for probably a 500g wheel. Vacuum sealed, too, to spare our noses.
Then we drove south to our hotel for the night, enjoyed a free wildlife show from the local stork population (pictured) and then went out for dinner at our third favourite restaurant in the general area. Yes, I'm being vague on purpose. I can take you to these places, but I'm not telling anyone where they are for obvious reasons!
Alas, this was a disappointment too. The food was good enough, but that's not why we go there. We ordered a 2000 Coche Dury Perrieres, which I'd had 18 months earlier and loved at Trois Gros, but this was painfully shy. To make matters worse, the local water was way over-chlorinated and the glasses smelled terrible.
Our second wine choice was a Rousseau Chambertin Clos de Beze 96, and we didn't say a thing as the waitress produced a Chambertin 96 and proceeded to open it. Again, a bit disappointing, not least because of the glassware. We were wondering about the fruit days/root days bio calendar about this time.
Full but far from satisfied, we retired for another decent night's sleep ahead of our fourth and final shot at wine nirvana ...
Day 8: Last drop, first splash
Drove another 90 minutes south to Siebeldingen in the Pfalz for a tasting at Rebholz. I find the dry wines here harder to gauge as young wines. We ran through some interesting varietals -- silvaner, pinot blanc, pinot gris, riesling, gewurztraminer, a clear pinot noir (they call it blanc de noir), a rosé pinot noir ... some could work better than others.
Germany is ahead of the curve when it comes to dry whites. People might scoff at some of them but dry riesling sales are soaring in Australia and the US at the very least.
Anyway, Hansjorg Rebholz is confident the 09s are his best yet -- he has two levels of many wines and he feels that the standard wines are as good as the reserves of some other vintages.
We had lunch in a cute little joint in the next village where a famous chef has returned to treat the locals. Lovely stuff and no hiccups :-)
Will stomach full and a bit of wine on board I struggled the two hours or so further south to a regular favourite stop of mine for a night out with friends. We stayed in a local pension, ordered two pretty smart wines -- a 2002 Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne and a 1976 DRC Richebourg -- and let the restaurant match a few courses with it.
I managed to stay awake but it was difficult with the restaurant being so hot. A decent sleep-in beckoned though ...
Germany is ahead of the curve when it comes to dry whites. People might scoff at some of them but dry riesling sales are soaring in Australia and the US at the very least.
Anyway, Hansjorg Rebholz is confident the 09s are his best yet -- he has two levels of many wines and he feels that the standard wines are as good as the reserves of some other vintages.
We had lunch in a cute little joint in the next village where a famous chef has returned to treat the locals. Lovely stuff and no hiccups :-)
Will stomach full and a bit of wine on board I struggled the two hours or so further south to a regular favourite stop of mine for a night out with friends. We stayed in a local pension, ordered two pretty smart wines -- a 2002 Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne and a 1976 DRC Richebourg -- and let the restaurant match a few courses with it.
I managed to stay awake but it was difficult with the restaurant being so hot. A decent sleep-in beckoned though ...
Day 7: Nahe two ways about it
A quick drive an hour or so from Winningen and I was at Monzingen for a tasting with Frank Schonleber at Weingut Emrich-Schonleber. This was hiccup day. I had the hiccups for the whole drive after stuffing my breakfast down in the morning. I actually got rid of them while I waiting in the tasting room for Frank, but then they came back as soon as we finished trying the 09s!
We tried a lovely sparkling riesling brut which I will import, then a range of rieslings from dry to eiswein. There were two TBAs fermenting away and not ready to taste. They'll either blend them and sell it direct, or bottle two and sell one direct and send one to auction.
It was interesting to see the differences between their two main vineyards, Fruhlingsplatzchen and Halenberg. I preferred the Fru spatlese and the Halenberg Auslese and, fortunately, Frank agreed. Who knows in a few months' time though, and we were splitting hairs. They are just different styles and will suit different people.
We had a nice lunch and tried matching four wines with a sea trout with a creamy sauce. Then Frank got the hiccups. Heh heh.
I drove about 15 minutes from here to Bockenau for a tasting with producer of the year Tim Frohlich at Schafer-Frohlich. We went through about 20 wines and my hiccups returned mid-tasting, damn it all. It was so annoying ... Tim reckons sweet wine cures them and in fact they stopped when we hit the residual sugar of a kabinett.
Again, a knockout collection. Tim won a lot of awards for his 2008 range and I am wondering how they are going to justify not giving them all to him again when this vintage is even better! He can seemingly handle a lot of different varietals too -- I really enjoyed his pinot blanc and pinot gris, and will probably buy a couple of reds from here as well!
I wanted cheap digs for the night but Frank booked me into a hotel at a local spa resort. I had a room well away from the main restaurant, but it was nice and they eventually forgot to charge me for dinner or the internet ... at least at checkout. I am sure they will catch up with me before long. I struggled to stay awake at dinner too but I enjoyed horrifying the waiter by ordering a Donnhoff spatlese (06). The menu was full of trockens so I wanted to shock him. He thought I would taste it and reject it, but I enjoyed it will all three courses, even steak.
We tried a lovely sparkling riesling brut which I will import, then a range of rieslings from dry to eiswein. There were two TBAs fermenting away and not ready to taste. They'll either blend them and sell it direct, or bottle two and sell one direct and send one to auction.
It was interesting to see the differences between their two main vineyards, Fruhlingsplatzchen and Halenberg. I preferred the Fru spatlese and the Halenberg Auslese and, fortunately, Frank agreed. Who knows in a few months' time though, and we were splitting hairs. They are just different styles and will suit different people.
We had a nice lunch and tried matching four wines with a sea trout with a creamy sauce. Then Frank got the hiccups. Heh heh.
I drove about 15 minutes from here to Bockenau for a tasting with producer of the year Tim Frohlich at Schafer-Frohlich. We went through about 20 wines and my hiccups returned mid-tasting, damn it all. It was so annoying ... Tim reckons sweet wine cures them and in fact they stopped when we hit the residual sugar of a kabinett.
Again, a knockout collection. Tim won a lot of awards for his 2008 range and I am wondering how they are going to justify not giving them all to him again when this vintage is even better! He can seemingly handle a lot of different varietals too -- I really enjoyed his pinot blanc and pinot gris, and will probably buy a couple of reds from here as well!
I wanted cheap digs for the night but Frank booked me into a hotel at a local spa resort. I had a room well away from the main restaurant, but it was nice and they eventually forgot to charge me for dinner or the internet ... at least at checkout. I am sure they will catch up with me before long. I struggled to stay awake at dinner too but I enjoyed horrifying the waiter by ordering a Donnhoff spatlese (06). The menu was full of trockens so I wanted to shock him. He thought I would taste it and reject it, but I enjoyed it will all three courses, even steak.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Day 6: Haart to Heart
It was freezing in the morning -- zero degrees and foggy. But apparently this meant it would be a nice day, and sure enough the sun eventually broke through and the temperatures reached the mid teens.
My day had started at 5am when I must have heard my phone vibrate and I got up to answer about 30 emails. I never got back to sleep but I had a fun day. I went back to Willi Schaefer to pick up some drinking stocks for a friend, then went to Reinhold Haart, where Johannes guided me through their 09s. Again lots of lovely ripe fruit, burying the minerality somewhat, but good acid and excellent balance. We tried a 01 dry wine that had been open 10 days (and still looked great) and a 1982 auslese -- really smart wine for a weaker vintage, and this wine had also been open 10 days!
Dry and sweet riesling end up in similar shape after 10 or 20 years in bottle -- the fruity styles lose a lot of sweetness and the dry styles put on body and complexity.
From here I went back to Schloss Lieser to pick up some goodies, then set out for Winningen, about an hour north, near Koblenz.
Gas stations seem in short supply around villages in the Mosel but I finally found some fuel for the car and myself -- diesel for the Peugeot 5008 and a massive bratwurst in a bread roll for me. Yum.
Cruised along at 180 to Winningen and then caught up on emails and orders till 5pm, then went to see Matthias and his mother Beate at Weingut Knebel. There I tried a few 09s, including two awesome auslese goldcaps and an eiswein. Mmmm, more sugar. Yum again!
Went out for dinner in Koblenz and had a lovely 99 spatlese and a fairly yeasty Burguet Gevrey village 00. I was falling asleep though so it wasn't a late night. In fact I stole a 30-second shutdown and reboot in the toilets to get me through!
My day had started at 5am when I must have heard my phone vibrate and I got up to answer about 30 emails. I never got back to sleep but I had a fun day. I went back to Willi Schaefer to pick up some drinking stocks for a friend, then went to Reinhold Haart, where Johannes guided me through their 09s. Again lots of lovely ripe fruit, burying the minerality somewhat, but good acid and excellent balance. We tried a 01 dry wine that had been open 10 days (and still looked great) and a 1982 auslese -- really smart wine for a weaker vintage, and this wine had also been open 10 days!
Dry and sweet riesling end up in similar shape after 10 or 20 years in bottle -- the fruity styles lose a lot of sweetness and the dry styles put on body and complexity.
From here I went back to Schloss Lieser to pick up some goodies, then set out for Winningen, about an hour north, near Koblenz.
Gas stations seem in short supply around villages in the Mosel but I finally found some fuel for the car and myself -- diesel for the Peugeot 5008 and a massive bratwurst in a bread roll for me. Yum.
Cruised along at 180 to Winningen and then caught up on emails and orders till 5pm, then went to see Matthias and his mother Beate at Weingut Knebel. There I tried a few 09s, including two awesome auslese goldcaps and an eiswein. Mmmm, more sugar. Yum again!
Went out for dinner in Koblenz and had a lovely 99 spatlese and a fairly yeasty Burguet Gevrey village 00. I was falling asleep though so it wasn't a late night. In fact I stole a 30-second shutdown and reboot in the toilets to get me through!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Day 5: Mosel madness
An overwhelming sugar-hit today.
Spent three hours at Weingut Willi Schaefer, trying all the 09s. A sensational range, with the auslese being pants-wetting material ... then an eiswein and a BA! Gorgeous stuff. Golden delicious all round.
Then lunch in Mulheim with Christoph before making my way to Lieser to meet with Thomas Haag. We moseyed around his vineyards for a while before settling in for a couple of hours of tasting his 09s.
The goldkaps rocked my world and that was just the start. We finished off with a long goldcap and then two TBA goldkaps! One had 470 and the other 530g/l of residual sugar!
Quick dinner with Thomas and then back to the Schmitges guesthouse. Back on the road tomorrow.
Day 4: Ruwer and Mosel
Drove back towards Trier -- loving the 280km/h commute -- and wound my way to Mertesdorf to meet with Dr Carl von Schubert at Maximin Grunhaus.
We tasted through the range of 2009s, ending with a sensational eiswein, then settled in for lunch with his wife and eldest son.
Loving the lamb lettuce here ... weird name though!
Had a 1981 Herrenberg Kabinett and 1988 Herrenberg Jungfeinweine for lunch, then headed back to Erden.
There I ran through the Schmitges lineup, now resplendent in Stelvin Lux closures for every single wine.
Again, an awesome eiswein completed the lineup. Then I wandered down the road for a typical stodgy German mean and a painfully chemical weissbier.
We tasted through the range of 2009s, ending with a sensational eiswein, then settled in for lunch with his wife and eldest son.
Loving the lamb lettuce here ... weird name though!
Had a 1981 Herrenberg Kabinett and 1988 Herrenberg Jungfeinweine for lunch, then headed back to Erden.
There I ran through the Schmitges lineup, now resplendent in Stelvin Lux closures for every single wine.
Again, an awesome eiswein completed the lineup. Then I wandered down the road for a typical stodgy German mean and a painfully chemical weissbier.
Day three: Land of the giants
I'll post briefly now and expand later.
After waking at 4am and pottering around for hours we had breakfast then went to Zilliken to pick up some goodies for Gav and David Clark in Burgundy. Dorothee served us a 1983 Rausch auslese that had been open for days but still looked as fresh as a daisy. And she is comparing 2009 to 1983 ...
Raced along the river past some precarious vineyards to Van Volxem in Wiltingen. Cellarmaster Dominic entertained us while Roman was delayed on a flight. We had a quick look at the bubbling cellars (dry wines on a long slow ferment), then looked at the exposed Scharzhofberger vineyard and some of the other sites overlooking the Saar.
Went back to the house and started tasting some 08s, including fabulous grosse gewaches -- Volz and Gottesfuss. Then Roman arrived, gave us a history lesson about riesling fetching higher prices than top Bordeaux around 1900, and served up three 2009s. Very smart.
I drove on to Erden while Gav and Gen set sail for Burgundy. I arrived at the Schmitges lodging to an empty house but thankfully they turned up, surprised to see me a day early, and we settled in for the evening.
After waking at 4am and pottering around for hours we had breakfast then went to Zilliken to pick up some goodies for Gav and David Clark in Burgundy. Dorothee served us a 1983 Rausch auslese that had been open for days but still looked as fresh as a daisy. And she is comparing 2009 to 1983 ...
Raced along the river past some precarious vineyards to Van Volxem in Wiltingen. Cellarmaster Dominic entertained us while Roman was delayed on a flight. We had a quick look at the bubbling cellars (dry wines on a long slow ferment), then looked at the exposed Scharzhofberger vineyard and some of the other sites overlooking the Saar.
Went back to the house and started tasting some 08s, including fabulous grosse gewaches -- Volz and Gottesfuss. Then Roman arrived, gave us a history lesson about riesling fetching higher prices than top Bordeaux around 1900, and served up three 2009s. Very smart.
I drove on to Erden while Gav and Gen set sail for Burgundy. I arrived at the Schmitges lodging to an empty house but thankfully they turned up, surprised to see me a day early, and we settled in for the evening.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Day two: back on the right side of the road
I love Europe. It was exciting to be back on the continent. I had dozed on the short flight from London to Charles de Gaulle, negotiated the disinterested French immigration control post (no questions, just a stamp of arrival in the passport), was surprised to see both of my bags emerge from the carousel, walked past an empty customs post and then hurried to the rental car counter hoping they still had my car, booked for collection four hours earlier.
My rental booking is great value but I later realised it looks like I have no insurance cover. I hope that's not right as I thought I had just declined the major excess reduction, which is covered by my travel insurance (I have an annual policy, which saves a fair bit of money and hassle). The car is a diesel Peugeot 5008 stationwagon. It's got heaps of room, two vital power outlets, plenty of grunt, and diesel is so much more economical in Europe.
The TomTom fired up and quickly had me on the right roads. I was soon on the A4 doing 135kmh towards Reims and then Strasbourg. I was heading for Germany but I was thrilled to be back in France. I decided Germany was like family -- reliable, secure, constant -- and France was more romantic intrigue. It'll be better when I have time to improve my basic French, but for now I can get by and I love it.
I hit some roadworks and a major traffic jam near Luxembourg, and ended up doing a U-turn to get my exit, but I was on track for a 4pm arrival in Saarburg. Gavin and Gen had driven up from Beaune via Champagne so Gavin could fill his boot with more grower/bio champagnes, and arrived at the Hotel Galerie half an hour or so before me.
I had a shower, changed and we walked about 150m up the road for the first tasting visit of the March-April 2010 tour: Weingut Forstmeister-Geltz Zilliken.
With Hanno and Ruth away, the ever-delightful Dorothee gave us a guided tour of the cellars and then did a tasting of the 2009 range. German wine rules are changing again in a bid to make them simpler and more logical for the customer, and Zilliken have tackled all of the changes in this vintage.
They now have a three-tier range, start with gutsweine, or estate wine, then orstweine, or village level, and finally the Erste Lage range.
The names are also being simplified, and while all VDP members are expected to make a Grosse Gewachs now (a grand cru dry wine), they must no longer name wines kabinett trocken or spatlese trocken. No matter what must weight the grapes are picked at, they will be labelled trocken (max 9g/l r/s) or feinherb, with the terms kabinett, spatlese and auslese reserved for fruity wines.
At Zilliken we started with a trocken from each of the three quality levels: The Zilliken Riesling Trocken was first, and I was really impressed. It's very open and floral on the nose, and has impressive softness in the mouth. The Saarburger Trocken is less expressive on the nose but has a richer, more soil-driven palate. Then the "Rausch GG", which in more confusing times would have been called Saarburger Rausch Spatlese Trocken Grosse Gewachs. I'm not convinced about the pursuit of dry wines from a region that does fruity so well, but dry is where the German market is, so I understand the desire to try.
Zilliken's first is a nice effort -- it has real length and persistence. It's closed on the nose but on the palate it is dense and yet still elegant. Yellow fruit seem to be a hallmark of the vintage here. I often think of Z wines as featuring lime, vanilla essence and slate, but this vintage there is more tropical fruit -- mangoes, peach, apricot and pineapple.
Dorothee opined that Saar's point of difference is the variation in the climate, which she believes gives the wines more character and depth of flavour. 2009 had been wet in August but was perfect in September and October. One day after they finished picking it rained for a month.
Zilliken were able to make wines at every level they wanted, except eiswein as the grapes had lost their sugar and acid by the time the weather was cold enough to snap freeze them.
The process at Zilliken is to handpick grapes, press gently (or not at all for a couple of wines, taking just what juice emerged naturally from the weight in the press), put the juice in tank for one day and then transfer it to old oak fudres in the cellar for fermentation, which they believes improves the mouthfeel. When they feel the wine is balanced at whatever sweetness level they rack the wine off the yeast (twice if necessary), do a large-pore filter and then sulphur to stabilise. The sweeter the wine, the more sulphur is required to ensure there is no refermentation with all that sugar.
Back to the vintage 09: Dorothee says the wines have the elegance of 04 but the intensity of flavour of 05. Then she compares it to 1983. Every vintage has its subtle differences, and although the acids are as high as 08, they are softer, riper, rounder, comprising less malic acid (apple flavours). Minerality shines through, and the devonian slate seems to have imparted a powdery, wet-concrete taste that we'll call slate.
So, back to the glass: I'll go for the estate trocken because it's so expressive and will be the best value (people love dry wines but seem reluctant to pay much for them). The second flight is three off-dry wines: Zilliken Butterfly, Saarburger Feinherb and "Rausch Diabas", a new name in the family. Without kabinett trocken or spatlese trocken to identify a wine picked at a higher must weight, Zilliken convinced the VDP of the need for a new estate name for a top-class feinherb. Diabas is the second most prolific type of rock in their vineyards, a minerally stone.
The Butterfly is pretty, fresh, limey, talcy, just lovely. With 17g/l r/s, a screwcap and a label that was inspired by a wine writer's description of Zilliken wines as being as delicate as a butterfly, this is certain to be a big seller. I like it more than the 07 and 08, from memory.
The Saarburger Feinherb has a pale yellow colour, nice intensity, 22g/l r/s but finishes even drier than the Butterfly. It's very good.
The Diabas was picked at auslese level of ripeness -- 108 oechsle -- and fermented to about 24g/l r/s. It has delicate flavours but they are intense, clean and long, and the wine again finishes virtually dry.
Up a grade in sweetness now to kabinett and a chance to compare Zilliken's 8ha of Saarburger Rausch and 1ha of Ockfener Bockstein. Ockfen is the next village along the river.
The Zilliken Riesling is the estate kabinett and shows lots of ripe yellow fruit. It's clean, fresh, fruity and carries the 50g/l of sugar with ease.
The Saarburger Kabinett is richer on the palate and has hints of passionfruit. It's full in tatse but light on the alcohol, one of the reasons I love German riesling.
The Bockstein Kabinett comes from a vineyard that is not as steep as the Rausch but is still south-facing. It has devonian slate but it's more gravelly. The wines tend to be more open and powerful, and this one, even with just 45g/l r/s, tastes quite dense, with grapefruit, passionfruit and powdery slate on the palate. The alcohol is about 8.5 to 9% (the final analysis is not made until the wines are submitted for approval for their AP numbers).
The Rausch Kabinett leaps up to 65g/l r/s and is more floral and delicate. This site delivers more elegance and tropical fruit flavours of apricot, peach and pineapple.
The next wine grabs me too -- the Rausch Spatlese, which will be AP #6, and here comes a revelation about the grade of quality at Zilliken. They assign AP#1 to their best wine and move down the order from there. So if there are three spatleses in the vintage, the lowest number is what Zilliken consider to the best of them.
This spatlese is intense, with lots of peach, apricot, mango ... lots of acid too to keep it clean and in check on the finish. It leaves the palate thirsting for more. Dorothee likes to call it "animating, elegant acidity". This wine has about 80g/l r/s and alcohol of 7.5 to 8%.
Even the next wine, the Rausch Auslese (AP#5), doesn't taste sweet at 95g/l r/s. You can see it's a dense and ripe vintage but it's still bright and lively on the palate.
A quick palate cleanser and then we have a look at the 1993 Saarburger Rausch Auslese which I'll be importing later in the year (I've also got the last 10 cases of the '93 spatlese). The sugar has subsided (and was probably spatlese level to start with), and waxy, lanolin flavours have begun to develop, but it's still so fresh on the palate -- lemon curd, quince, a hint of licehn -- and then we learn that this bottle has been open for six days!
Next up is the Rausch Auslese #8 from 2005. This was the vintage of a lifetime for Zilliken and one they consoled themselves with when they cracked their last bottle of 1959 last year. They made six auslese that vintage -- two standard, two goldcap and two longcap! The best of them was AP#5, so this goldcap was fourth in the queue. The flavours are concentrated and in the lemon curd spectrum, but the acid is fresh and energises the palate rather than overwhelming it.
I'm exhausted and distracted so Dorothee decides to perk me up with their best two wines of the 2009 vintage. Both will be available only at the VDP auction in Trier in September, so I'll have to go to that!
The Rausch Auslese Goldcap #2 was picked at 130 oechsle, with 100% botrytis, but it is so clean and light on the palate. Energy and intensity rather than lushness. The 180g/l r/s is easily carried by acidity of 12g/l.
The big daddy is the most intense TBA Zilliken has made, with more must weight than their gauge could measure, and it goes to 230 oechsle! The raw figures are approximately 400g/l r/s, 15g/l acid and a surprisingly high 6.5% alcohol. "We've never had a wine with such concentration," Dorothee says. There is just 80 litres of it and I'll be trying to get my share. It's noticeably viscous in the glass but still not overpowering in the mouth. It's all about balance.
Looks like 2009 is a cracker, and yet different to the great string of vintages preceding it. And that's got to be a good thing.
Today's schedule: Van Volxem. Owner Roman Niewodniczanski is leading the charge for classication clarification at the VDP and will surely have plenty to say. And with his 2007 and 2008 wines grabbing people so quickly on arrival in Australia, I'll be paying close attention to the stars of his 09 lineup.
My rental booking is great value but I later realised it looks like I have no insurance cover. I hope that's not right as I thought I had just declined the major excess reduction, which is covered by my travel insurance (I have an annual policy, which saves a fair bit of money and hassle). The car is a diesel Peugeot 5008 stationwagon. It's got heaps of room, two vital power outlets, plenty of grunt, and diesel is so much more economical in Europe.
The TomTom fired up and quickly had me on the right roads. I was soon on the A4 doing 135kmh towards Reims and then Strasbourg. I was heading for Germany but I was thrilled to be back in France. I decided Germany was like family -- reliable, secure, constant -- and France was more romantic intrigue. It'll be better when I have time to improve my basic French, but for now I can get by and I love it.
I hit some roadworks and a major traffic jam near Luxembourg, and ended up doing a U-turn to get my exit, but I was on track for a 4pm arrival in Saarburg. Gavin and Gen had driven up from Beaune via Champagne so Gavin could fill his boot with more grower/bio champagnes, and arrived at the Hotel Galerie half an hour or so before me.
I had a shower, changed and we walked about 150m up the road for the first tasting visit of the March-April 2010 tour: Weingut Forstmeister-Geltz Zilliken.
With Hanno and Ruth away, the ever-delightful Dorothee gave us a guided tour of the cellars and then did a tasting of the 2009 range. German wine rules are changing again in a bid to make them simpler and more logical for the customer, and Zilliken have tackled all of the changes in this vintage.
They now have a three-tier range, start with gutsweine, or estate wine, then orstweine, or village level, and finally the Erste Lage range.
The names are also being simplified, and while all VDP members are expected to make a Grosse Gewachs now (a grand cru dry wine), they must no longer name wines kabinett trocken or spatlese trocken. No matter what must weight the grapes are picked at, they will be labelled trocken (max 9g/l r/s) or feinherb, with the terms kabinett, spatlese and auslese reserved for fruity wines.
At Zilliken we started with a trocken from each of the three quality levels: The Zilliken Riesling Trocken was first, and I was really impressed. It's very open and floral on the nose, and has impressive softness in the mouth. The Saarburger Trocken is less expressive on the nose but has a richer, more soil-driven palate. Then the "Rausch GG", which in more confusing times would have been called Saarburger Rausch Spatlese Trocken Grosse Gewachs. I'm not convinced about the pursuit of dry wines from a region that does fruity so well, but dry is where the German market is, so I understand the desire to try.
Zilliken's first is a nice effort -- it has real length and persistence. It's closed on the nose but on the palate it is dense and yet still elegant. Yellow fruit seem to be a hallmark of the vintage here. I often think of Z wines as featuring lime, vanilla essence and slate, but this vintage there is more tropical fruit -- mangoes, peach, apricot and pineapple.
Dorothee opined that Saar's point of difference is the variation in the climate, which she believes gives the wines more character and depth of flavour. 2009 had been wet in August but was perfect in September and October. One day after they finished picking it rained for a month.
Zilliken were able to make wines at every level they wanted, except eiswein as the grapes had lost their sugar and acid by the time the weather was cold enough to snap freeze them.
The process at Zilliken is to handpick grapes, press gently (or not at all for a couple of wines, taking just what juice emerged naturally from the weight in the press), put the juice in tank for one day and then transfer it to old oak fudres in the cellar for fermentation, which they believes improves the mouthfeel. When they feel the wine is balanced at whatever sweetness level they rack the wine off the yeast (twice if necessary), do a large-pore filter and then sulphur to stabilise. The sweeter the wine, the more sulphur is required to ensure there is no refermentation with all that sugar.
Back to the vintage 09: Dorothee says the wines have the elegance of 04 but the intensity of flavour of 05. Then she compares it to 1983. Every vintage has its subtle differences, and although the acids are as high as 08, they are softer, riper, rounder, comprising less malic acid (apple flavours). Minerality shines through, and the devonian slate seems to have imparted a powdery, wet-concrete taste that we'll call slate.
So, back to the glass: I'll go for the estate trocken because it's so expressive and will be the best value (people love dry wines but seem reluctant to pay much for them). The second flight is three off-dry wines: Zilliken Butterfly, Saarburger Feinherb and "Rausch Diabas", a new name in the family. Without kabinett trocken or spatlese trocken to identify a wine picked at a higher must weight, Zilliken convinced the VDP of the need for a new estate name for a top-class feinherb. Diabas is the second most prolific type of rock in their vineyards, a minerally stone.
The Butterfly is pretty, fresh, limey, talcy, just lovely. With 17g/l r/s, a screwcap and a label that was inspired by a wine writer's description of Zilliken wines as being as delicate as a butterfly, this is certain to be a big seller. I like it more than the 07 and 08, from memory.
The Saarburger Feinherb has a pale yellow colour, nice intensity, 22g/l r/s but finishes even drier than the Butterfly. It's very good.
The Diabas was picked at auslese level of ripeness -- 108 oechsle -- and fermented to about 24g/l r/s. It has delicate flavours but they are intense, clean and long, and the wine again finishes virtually dry.
Up a grade in sweetness now to kabinett and a chance to compare Zilliken's 8ha of Saarburger Rausch and 1ha of Ockfener Bockstein. Ockfen is the next village along the river.
The Zilliken Riesling is the estate kabinett and shows lots of ripe yellow fruit. It's clean, fresh, fruity and carries the 50g/l of sugar with ease.
The Saarburger Kabinett is richer on the palate and has hints of passionfruit. It's full in tatse but light on the alcohol, one of the reasons I love German riesling.
The Bockstein Kabinett comes from a vineyard that is not as steep as the Rausch but is still south-facing. It has devonian slate but it's more gravelly. The wines tend to be more open and powerful, and this one, even with just 45g/l r/s, tastes quite dense, with grapefruit, passionfruit and powdery slate on the palate. The alcohol is about 8.5 to 9% (the final analysis is not made until the wines are submitted for approval for their AP numbers).
The Rausch Kabinett leaps up to 65g/l r/s and is more floral and delicate. This site delivers more elegance and tropical fruit flavours of apricot, peach and pineapple.
The next wine grabs me too -- the Rausch Spatlese, which will be AP #6, and here comes a revelation about the grade of quality at Zilliken. They assign AP#1 to their best wine and move down the order from there. So if there are three spatleses in the vintage, the lowest number is what Zilliken consider to the best of them.
This spatlese is intense, with lots of peach, apricot, mango ... lots of acid too to keep it clean and in check on the finish. It leaves the palate thirsting for more. Dorothee likes to call it "animating, elegant acidity". This wine has about 80g/l r/s and alcohol of 7.5 to 8%.
Even the next wine, the Rausch Auslese (AP#5), doesn't taste sweet at 95g/l r/s. You can see it's a dense and ripe vintage but it's still bright and lively on the palate.
A quick palate cleanser and then we have a look at the 1993 Saarburger Rausch Auslese which I'll be importing later in the year (I've also got the last 10 cases of the '93 spatlese). The sugar has subsided (and was probably spatlese level to start with), and waxy, lanolin flavours have begun to develop, but it's still so fresh on the palate -- lemon curd, quince, a hint of licehn -- and then we learn that this bottle has been open for six days!
Next up is the Rausch Auslese #8 from 2005. This was the vintage of a lifetime for Zilliken and one they consoled themselves with when they cracked their last bottle of 1959 last year. They made six auslese that vintage -- two standard, two goldcap and two longcap! The best of them was AP#5, so this goldcap was fourth in the queue. The flavours are concentrated and in the lemon curd spectrum, but the acid is fresh and energises the palate rather than overwhelming it.
I'm exhausted and distracted so Dorothee decides to perk me up with their best two wines of the 2009 vintage. Both will be available only at the VDP auction in Trier in September, so I'll have to go to that!
The Rausch Auslese Goldcap #2 was picked at 130 oechsle, with 100% botrytis, but it is so clean and light on the palate. Energy and intensity rather than lushness. The 180g/l r/s is easily carried by acidity of 12g/l.
The big daddy is the most intense TBA Zilliken has made, with more must weight than their gauge could measure, and it goes to 230 oechsle! The raw figures are approximately 400g/l r/s, 15g/l acid and a surprisingly high 6.5% alcohol. "We've never had a wine with such concentration," Dorothee says. There is just 80 litres of it and I'll be trying to get my share. It's noticeably viscous in the glass but still not overpowering in the mouth. It's all about balance.
Looks like 2009 is a cracker, and yet different to the great string of vintages preceding it. And that's got to be a good thing.
Today's schedule: Van Volxem. Owner Roman Niewodniczanski is leading the charge for classication clarification at the VDP and will surely have plenty to say. And with his 2007 and 2008 wines grabbing people so quickly on arrival in Australia, I'll be paying close attention to the stars of his 09 lineup.
Back in Europe: daily updates (I hope)!
Hello anyone out there.
I figure it's time I attempted a daily blog to keep any interested parties up to date with what's going on during this extended buying trip in Europe.
Friday, March 12, 2010:
My usual chaotic preparation for a trip overseas. I'm always a fairly good chance of missing flights because I attempt to do so much before I fly. This day was no exception. I had a 9am appointment with a dermatologist because of an inflamed mole on my lower back that had been bothering me, and with two previous skin cancer incidents I had decided to play it safe. The doctor felt that the two moles I referred her to were fine but she removed them both anyway and they will be tested for nasties.
I went home and packed and worked through a list of jobs, primarily being frustrated by TomTom ... I'd almost missed flights 18 months earlier after stuffing around trying to download maps of France and Germany to my mobile phone, and this time my GPS was giving me just as much grief. The maps I had bought for my unit at $180 downloaded to my computer but wouldn't fit on the GPS. I got a snotty support guy at TomTom who eventually hung up on me and went to lunch. The next guy was much better but I eventually had to give up on making it work. Instead I had deleted everything off the unit and was going to try to figure it out on the plane.
I had intended to catch a cab at 2pm so I could beat the driver changeover and be at the airport in plenty of time for a 5.40pm flight. Too easy, so instead I drove around town to do three jobs: I left home at 1.45pm and booked the cab for 3pm, then set off to drop off two bottles of chablis at the warehouse to add to an order and one bottle of champagne to be posted to a restaurant that is looking for 50 cases. Then I drove to News Limited to leave three bottles to be photographed for an article James Halliday is writing on Schloss Lieser for The Australian weekend magazine. The final task was to get 2kg of Campos Superior coffee beans from Newtown for a mate in Burgundy. I pushed the cab booking to 3.15pm and then 3.30pm as I raced home.
Scrapping plans to have another shower, I quickly changed, grabbed all my things and headed outside. The cab turned up almost on time and although it took longer than I would have liked, by checking in the night before I only had to arrive 60 minutes early to check in bags.
Qantas were unmoved by a letter from my doctor asking me to be given a more comfortable seat (that would have been business!) so I settled in at the back of the plane on a new A380. New but not reliable apparently as it had "engineering" issues and we left about an hour late. My connection time in Singapore was only one hour for th flight to Paris and I was given conflicting information about whether that flight would be held.
Despite the constant farting of the old man in the aisle seat, or maybe because of it, I slept a couple of hours and caught up on a couple of movies. There was no hope of making a quick getaway because although the crew offered to take me upstairs through business, the old farter didn't want to let me out.
Ground staff told me the flight was going to be held for 70 minutes but then when I checked at the transfer desk they told me it had already left. They were going to put me back on the 380 for London, with a connection to Paris and an arrival time about five and a half hours later than planned.
I changed clothes, got back on the plane and this time had 13 or so hours to look forward to sandwiched between two big guys -- one a nice British businessman based in Hungary, and the other a giant Mormon who smelled bad, slept with his mouth open and also turned out to be a chronic farter. Why do people do this in enclosed places? Can't they go to the bathroom and spare the rest of us the nasal torture?
Still, I slept for a few hours, watched a couple more movies and made it to London and my new connection. Also, on about the fifth attempt, I got the TomTom map to fit on the GPS. I then went in and deleted a bunch of voice files (as instructed) to free up more memory, and then tried to add one voice. It wouldn't work until I emptied the trash, but even after downloading the voice the unit said it didn't have any matched to the maps and I would be guided by arrows instead of voice commands.
Still, I thought I could live with that -- at least I had the maps. Let's call that the end of the first day and the end of a ridiculously long post. I'm not going to be able to do this much every day!
I figure it's time I attempted a daily blog to keep any interested parties up to date with what's going on during this extended buying trip in Europe.
Friday, March 12, 2010:
My usual chaotic preparation for a trip overseas. I'm always a fairly good chance of missing flights because I attempt to do so much before I fly. This day was no exception. I had a 9am appointment with a dermatologist because of an inflamed mole on my lower back that had been bothering me, and with two previous skin cancer incidents I had decided to play it safe. The doctor felt that the two moles I referred her to were fine but she removed them both anyway and they will be tested for nasties.
I went home and packed and worked through a list of jobs, primarily being frustrated by TomTom ... I'd almost missed flights 18 months earlier after stuffing around trying to download maps of France and Germany to my mobile phone, and this time my GPS was giving me just as much grief. The maps I had bought for my unit at $180 downloaded to my computer but wouldn't fit on the GPS. I got a snotty support guy at TomTom who eventually hung up on me and went to lunch. The next guy was much better but I eventually had to give up on making it work. Instead I had deleted everything off the unit and was going to try to figure it out on the plane.
I had intended to catch a cab at 2pm so I could beat the driver changeover and be at the airport in plenty of time for a 5.40pm flight. Too easy, so instead I drove around town to do three jobs: I left home at 1.45pm and booked the cab for 3pm, then set off to drop off two bottles of chablis at the warehouse to add to an order and one bottle of champagne to be posted to a restaurant that is looking for 50 cases. Then I drove to News Limited to leave three bottles to be photographed for an article James Halliday is writing on Schloss Lieser for The Australian weekend magazine. The final task was to get 2kg of Campos Superior coffee beans from Newtown for a mate in Burgundy. I pushed the cab booking to 3.15pm and then 3.30pm as I raced home.
Scrapping plans to have another shower, I quickly changed, grabbed all my things and headed outside. The cab turned up almost on time and although it took longer than I would have liked, by checking in the night before I only had to arrive 60 minutes early to check in bags.
Qantas were unmoved by a letter from my doctor asking me to be given a more comfortable seat (that would have been business!) so I settled in at the back of the plane on a new A380. New but not reliable apparently as it had "engineering" issues and we left about an hour late. My connection time in Singapore was only one hour for th flight to Paris and I was given conflicting information about whether that flight would be held.
Despite the constant farting of the old man in the aisle seat, or maybe because of it, I slept a couple of hours and caught up on a couple of movies. There was no hope of making a quick getaway because although the crew offered to take me upstairs through business, the old farter didn't want to let me out.
Ground staff told me the flight was going to be held for 70 minutes but then when I checked at the transfer desk they told me it had already left. They were going to put me back on the 380 for London, with a connection to Paris and an arrival time about five and a half hours later than planned.
I changed clothes, got back on the plane and this time had 13 or so hours to look forward to sandwiched between two big guys -- one a nice British businessman based in Hungary, and the other a giant Mormon who smelled bad, slept with his mouth open and also turned out to be a chronic farter. Why do people do this in enclosed places? Can't they go to the bathroom and spare the rest of us the nasal torture?
Still, I slept for a few hours, watched a couple more movies and made it to London and my new connection. Also, on about the fifth attempt, I got the TomTom map to fit on the GPS. I then went in and deleted a bunch of voice files (as instructed) to free up more memory, and then tried to add one voice. It wouldn't work until I emptied the trash, but even after downloading the voice the unit said it didn't have any matched to the maps and I would be guided by arrows instead of voice commands.
Still, I thought I could live with that -- at least I had the maps. Let's call that the end of the first day and the end of a ridiculously long post. I'm not going to be able to do this much every day!
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