(Thorsten Kogge / Editorial team / Photo: Messe Karlsruhe / Animation: rumwayml)
No one in the world was waiting for it. Except for a few people in Karlsruhe and the surrounding area – EUROVINO, which has only just come to an end.
Yet another wine fair? In a market that already has more dates than good reasons? At first, it sounds like one of those ideas born out of Excel spreadsheets – and one that would have been better off staying there. But then you find yourself in Karlsruhe. In a hall. Just one. And you begin to suspect that this is precisely the point. And that it’s going to be a good, relaxed tour.
EUROVINO is perhaps the first wine fair in years that doesn’t try to be bigger than it is. Around 500 exhibitors, no delusions of global dominance, no frantic ticking off of hall plans. Instead: clarity. Focus – and two or three pleasant follow-ups in the evening. And – almost to the point of being disconcerting – time. Time for conversations that last longer than two minutes. Time for wines that don’t get lost in the crowd. Time for encounters that don’t end in a crush.
You walk through this hall and realise quite soon: this isn’t about size, but about closeness. A small winery from the Palatinate, a few steps further on a Burgundian wine merchant, then back to the Moselle, Alsace, Italy. Europe, condensed within walking distance. No hopping between continents, but a deliberately chosen focus. Brilliant!
The fact that Karlsruhe, of all places, is home to this fair is almost subversive. No metropolis, no glamour, no artificial hype. Instead, proximity to Baden, the Palatinate, Alsace, Württemberg – and winemakers who can travel here without logistical madness. No hotel prices that resemble stock market prices. No trade fair that penalises its guests financially.
Organised by Karlsruher Messe, the whole thing feels like a counterpoint to the overstretched trade fair scene of recent years: smaller, more European, more controlled. You could almost say – sensible. A word that has long been regarded as an insult in the wine business.
And what is that? What’s in that glass?
A surprising amount of substance. The sparkling wines, for example, show just how widespread quality has become. I drink a Crémant d’Alsace by Arthur Metz – fresh, floral, with a mineral edge – almost to the last drop at a dangerously fast pace. Nyetimber, the premium ‘champagne’ from England, demonstrates once again that Champagne no longer has the sole authority to define great sparkling wines.
Germany is catching up too, and once again with surprising seriousness. Nik Weis and Bassermann-Jordan are producing sparkling wines that are no longer regarded as mere by-products. Nik Weis’s ‘Cuvée Clara’ (approx. €22): precise, modern, with exactly the balance that a younger audience is looking for, without being too simplistic.
And then there are those moments that are actually the reason one attends trade fairs – yet which one often no longer experiences: discoveries!
Tim Thesen from the Moselle, for example. Hardly anyone knows him, but his wines stand there with a self-assurance that is almost disconcerting. Old vines, clean lines, prices that almost seem like a mistake – does it all have to be so affordable? Unfortunately, yes, because German consumers are no longer willing to pay more for wines from steep slopes than for machine-harvested wines from flat terrain.
Or Gut Hermannsberg, where the ‘7 Terroirs’ Riesling shows that ‘entry-level’ is a relative term these days. Structure, spice, depth – and all without the heaviness one used to have to put up with.
As expected, France delivers strongly. But here, too, without any great fanfare. Louis Latour, Chartron et Trébuchet, Magnien – solid, distinctive, approachable. And Alsace, once again, as the quiet winner: Emile Beyer, Demeter, Pfersigberg Grand Cru – a wine full of the greatness it is said to possess.
EUROVINO is not a grand stage. And that is precisely its trump card in the trade fair game.
It is a trade fair for people who actually work with wine – or who want to drink it seriously. No teetering crowds in search of the next open bottle.
Instead: focus. And moderation – a lost virtue.