German Wine Tasting

November 9, 2007

The Wine Country hosted "Dry German Wine Tasting" tonight. This is to be the only public tasting for these winemakers and importer Rudi Wiest. All the other tastings across the country will be for the trade only. This really made for a very special evening. And a very surprising one.

All the winemakers from Germany were young, most in their early 30's. A really nice bunch of "krauts". (I can say this because I'm half German so don't get on your political bandwagon). Actually one of the winemakers was a dead ringer for my cousin. Different ages of course, but this guy looked just like my cousin did 30 years ago. Uncanny.

We tasted Rieslings, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir. There were 30 wines altogether and there was not a "dog" in the bunch. These wines were clean, finished well and had nice balance and acidity. Fruit forward without being sweet.

I was very surprised at the Pinot Noir "Spatburgunder". One that Rudi Wiest said would age 20 years was a 2005 Becker Dry Grosses Gewachs, "St. Paul @ $110 a bottle. For that price it should. I really liked this wine.

A few of the others I was taken with were the Becker 2006 Riesling Medium Dry, "Laissez Faire" at $30, the Furst 2006 Riesling Dry Grosses Gewachs, Burgstadter Centgrafenberg at $70, the Von Buhl 2006 Rielsing Medium Dry, Maria Schneider "Jazz" at $15, the Von Buhl 2006 Riesling Dry Grosses Gewachs, Ruppertsberger Reiterpfad at $42, the Wirsching 2006 Silvaner Dry Estate at $15 and the Wirsching 2006 Riesling Dry Grosses Gewachs, Iphofer Julius Echter Berg at $42.

This indeed was a memorable evening and for a price tag of $40 it was a true bargain