The Wineparty
(Gerhard Retter / Editorial team) Sylt is not one of those places where we expect Austrian fine wines. Outside, dunes, heathland and the North Sea define the landscape; inside, Jan-Philipp Berner has been cooking for years at a level that attracts attention far beyond Germany. It was precisely there that Austrian Wine invited guests to a grand tasting. After just a few glasses, the place Read the full article…
(Manfred Klimek / WELT am SONNTAG) German wine drinkers know their traditionally valuable wine-growing regions: the Moselle, the Rheingau, the Roter Hang in Rheinhessen, the expansive and multidiverse Palatinate, the beautiful slopes near Radebeul outside Dresden, and, to some extent, Baden too – above all the huge Kaiserstuhl vineyard hill. Yet deep in Germany’s deepest south-west, not Read the full article…
(Manfred Klimek / pic: Isna / source: BBC) It is often the smallest, most incidental reports that tell a bigger story. Amid headlines about power struggles in Tehran and analyses of Iran’s new-old leadership, this sentence appeared in a report that was rather hidden by the regime: alcohol, especially wine, would be served in restaurants in the cities Read the full article…
(Claude Auguste / pic: Sansibar Sylt) Klaus Peter Keller is one of the great wonders of German winegrowing. Not solely because he makes magnificent Rieslings – others do that too – but because, of all places, he established bottle prices in Rheinhessen that previously seemed conceivable only in Burgundy. Rheinhessen, for a long time synonymous with quantity, Liebfraumilch and agreeably unremarkable Read the full article…
(Manfred Klimek, text & photo) Winegrowing has suddenly regained a future that hardly anyone would have thought possible a few months ago. The very technology that many winegrowers quite rightly viewed with scepticism for a long time is opening up what may be the industry’s greatest opportunity since the introduction of temperature-controlled fermentation. It is not dealcoholisation itself that is meant. What is meant is the Read the full article…
(Manfred Klimek / pic: Weingut Emil Bauer) Wine and the choice of words (WamS, August 2011) I cannot bear hearing it any more. And it has been annoying me for years. People are constantly telling me that this evening, while having dinner or relaxing, they are going to “drink a nice glass of wine”. Or – much more daringly still – an entire Read the full article…
(Manfred Klimek / Editorial team / animated pic: runwayml) There is hardly a professional group that experiences climate change more directly than winegrowers. They see the vegetation not in statistics, but in the vineyard. Budburst occurs earlier than it did just a few decades ago. The harvest begins increasingly often as early as August. Heatwaves alter acidity levels, water balance and aromas. Hail, Read the full article…
(Klimek / Editorial team / animated pic: runwayml) 41 degrees? Even the experienced wine drinker loses the desire for wine. By now at the latest, even the most dogmatic wine enthusiasts lose their dignity: people who otherwise spend hours discussing maceration times, limestone soils and Burgundy clones suddenly find themselves standing in front of the fridge, thinking a thought they never dared to think: Read the full article…
(Manfred Klimek) Before the train arrives in Freiburg in Baden, I have to complete my column from a fortnight ago with a few wines from the Domäne Wachau estate discussed in that column. Although the estate makes several varieties splendidly – including some very rare white grapes such as Neuburger and Roter Veltliner – I am sticking with the best-known Austrian Read the full article…
(Klimek & Auguste) It begins with a sentence that many wine enthusiasts have unlearned: “A glass of white wine, please.” Not which vintage. Not which vineyard site. Not which winegrower. No look at the wine list. No discussion of élevage, acidity, lees ageing or scores. Simply a glass of white wine. A glass of summer. For a week, I did exactly that in Vienna Read the full article…
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