The Man from Mosel River

I love to eat fish. Red snapper is a good one. That one can prepare it with mushrooms was new to me. Alas there is Marcella Hazan and her cookery book which are always an inspiration.

Dinner in the making

Mushrooms on the fish

Unfortunately, I messed up the pictures of the food on the plate. I do not know how it happened. At times I am just too stupid to handle my new camera, it seems. Sorry folks, you have to be content with the two pictures above. I assure you that the fish was delicious. We served it with a bean salad in onions but had also some peeled tomatoes as a salad. We did not need carbohydrates.

A delicious fish, I usually enjoy with a good wine, not always white, sometimes red, but tonight it was white. From my last visit to Germany I had brought a bottle of my favourite winery in the Nahe valley, Weingut (winery) Emrich-Schönleber in Monzingen, a small village next to where my grandfather used to live (Martinstein) and where I spent almost all my school holidays.

The winery Emrich-Schönleber is one of the best wineries in the Nahe region and in Germany. It is famous for its dry and off-dry Riesling wines, mainly from the locations Halenberg and Fruehlingsplaetzchen. I usually visit them coming straight from the airport during my annual sommer break or home leave as it is called.

It is hard for a German Riesling lover who resides in Bangkok to find good Riesling wines. I am spoiled in this, I know.

But look at this colour? Golden, pure, with a fragrance of delicious grape fruit and citrus flavours. It has some residual sugar, so it’s not bone dry but the wine is creamy and dense, round and full, with good structure and a wonderful long finish.

It stays on the palate. If you ask me, it could stay there for ages. I was in paradise for the duration of the meal and woke up to the hard reality: no more Riesling from Emrich-Schönleber in my wine fridge.

Sigh, life can be hard.

2008 Monzinger Halenberg R by Emrich-Schönleber

Address:
Weingut Emrich-Schönleber
Soonwaldstraße 10a
D-55569 Monzingen
Tel.: +49-67 51-27 33
Fax: +49-67 51-48 64
www.emrich-schoenleber.de