Farmstead Cheeses and Wines

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Riesling!

This past week has been all about Riesling, that fabulous white wine grape that dominates German and Austrian winemaking.

Twice a year, Winewise (a local distributor) conducts a huge German and Austrian wine trade tasting featurning wines imported by Terry Thiese. He flies in a gaggle of winemakers to present the wines, and over 150 Rieslings from dozens of producers are poured (along with other varietals like Gruner Veltliner, Blaufrankisch, and Zweigelt from Austria.

Terry Thiese is there, ready to discuss the finer points of each wine (the man's knowlege of wine is sooo impressive!), as well as a virtual Who's Who of the SF wine scene - sommelliers, wine store owners, authors, etc etc etc.

As you can imagine, the tasting can be overwhelming. Where to start? How to distinguish among all of these finely crafted wines? Which wines to taste? How to keep from swallowing, getting drunk and "losing one's palate"?

My tack through the tasting is always similar. I choose five producers and taste all of their wines. That way, I have a somewhat clear sense of a producer's style across their portfolio, and don't get bogged down about whose Sonnenuhr Auslese 2004 I liked more (there were about 50 wines with that distintion at the tasting!).

This time, I tried wines from two Austrian producers - Heidi Schrock and Berger - and three Germans - Meulenhof, Kerpen and Selbach-Oster. We carry or have carried a smattering of wines from each of those producers in the store: Schrock's amazing Muscat (a blend of dry Muscat and Sauvignon Blanc - complex, floral and just plain killer), Berger's liter-sized Gruner Veltliner (if you've never had Gruner, you need to - think Sauvignon Blanc meets Pinot Grigio - refreshing, easy to drink, goes well with everything light), Kerpen's Sonnenuhr Kabinett (racy, tingly, crisp, with a complex finish), Selbach-Oster's Sonnenuhr Kabinett (a bit more minerality than the Kerpen, with a touch more fruit), and Meulenhof's Sonnenuhr QBa, and Sonnenuhr Kabinett(more fruit forward than most other Rieslings I've tasted, but still crisp, complex and minerally).

In conjunction with this tasting, we were honored to have Guido Justen, co-owner of Meulenhoff, in the store on Saturday, January 21 for a special tasting. We poured a selection of wines from across their portfolio: 2004 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling QbA, 2002 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett, 2003 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese, and the 2001
Erdener Treppchen Riesling Auslese (#13).

The in-store tasting was a smash! We've never had more folks in the store for a tasting before, and we've never sold more Reisling! (In a normal month, we'll sell maybe six bottles of Riesling - we sold over four cases in a single day!!).

Posted by Farmstead :: 7:59 AM :: 0 comments