Wine from Franconia: Weingut Juliusspital, Würzburg

October 12, 2010

During a recent visit to Berlin, I bought also some bottles of fine wine. I treated myself to a ‘grand cru’ or ‘Grosses Gewaechs’ as the Germans call it. The ‘2006 Juliusspital GG dry Silvaner’ was just the stuff which makes my wine lovers heart jump. The winery is one of the best in Franconia and ever since my late grand father took me there as a 16 year old boy I am in love with its wines. Franconian Silvaner is one of my favorites. The wine comes in the ‘Bocksbeutel’ bottle typical for Franconia.

2006 GG Silvaner Juliusspital dry

Nothing is better suited to wine enjoyment than the presence of a wine expert. When Timo Mayer, owner and wine maker of The Mayer Vineyard from the Yarra Valley, Victoria visited us recently in Bangkok, I could not resist to open this treasure of a wine from Franconia.

It has a golden colour, and is quite oily with a beautiful bouquet. The structure is good and it finishes with a tender bitter note due to the fine tannins. In short: a wonderful wine.

The wine is ready for tasting

Address:
Weingut Juliusspital
Klinikstr. 1
97070 Würzburg

Tel.: +49-931393-1400 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +49-931393-1400      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +49-931393-1400      end_of_the_skype_highlighting 
Fax: +49-931393-1414
E-Mail: weingut@juliusspital.de
www.weingut-juliusspital.de

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“Rain rain rain rain beautiful rain”

September 4, 2010

This is how a song line from South Africa goes. Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo made it famous in my circles. Now the drought in Victoria seems to have come to an end (after 13 years or so). It rains and rains in northern and central Victoria.

Of cause rain brings also destruction, landslides at Mount Buller for instance, flash floods, rivers rising, people had to be evacuated, in short chaos across the state of Victoria. In some places they had 150 millimetres.

But our dams at Two Hills Vineyard are full now. That’s the good news. I have not seen our big dam as full as now. ‘Brownies landing” is floating for the first time in years.

Dam at Two Hills Vineyard

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Emrich-Schönleber Riesling Sekt, Nahe. Germany

August 31, 2010

One of the best wineries along the Nahe river is Weingut Emrich-Schönleber in the village of Monzingen. The family vineyards (about 33 acres) produce great wines, mostly Riesling.

In 2010 the Gault Millau Wine Guide gave 10 of the 17 wines of the Emrich-Schönleber Estate 90 or more points. The wine writer Jancis Robinson was extremely impressed by the ‘2009 Halenberg Auslese’. 19.5 of 20 points was her verdict which is truly awesome.

Recently we visited the winery. Coming straight from Frankfurt Airport, we drove along the Nahe wine route, passed Bad Kreuznach, and spontaneously dropped in to pick up some bottles of wine.

In the yard, we bumped into Mr. Emrich-Schönleber senior, who was on his way out. In passing he referred us to his wife who was so kind to introduce us to the wines of the estate. Since it was early in the morning, we did not feel like tasting wine (we just came from breakfast in the small town of Sobernheim). Moreover, after many hours of flight, we had just gotten off the plane.

Our selection was quick but firm. I knew some of the ‘grand cru’ locations of Monzingen. After all, I had spent most of my school holidays in the neighbouring village of Martinstein where my maternal grandfather (Hans-Heinrich Schuessler) had introduced me to the amazing world of Nahe wines at a rather tender age.

We chose a nice cross section of Emrich-Schönleber’s wines including two sparkling ones. Ms. Emrich-Schönleber was so kind to add a small bottle of sweet desert wine as a gift. We were flabbergasted.

The bottle of Riesling Sekt (Sekt is German for ‘sparkling’) below did not last long. Only after a couple of hours, when the bottle was sufficiently cold, we opened it to celebrate the start of our holidays in Trier. What an auspicious start to a summer holiday in Europe?

Emrich-Schönleber Riesling Sekt

The Riesling Sekt is produced using the classical method of bottle fermentation. Everything is done by hand. Due to the acidity of the Riesling fruit, the wine displays a beautiful spectrum of fine acids. Moreover, it is dry and fruity with lots of fizz. The magnificent minerality of the wine is another characteristic.

Emrich-Schönleber Riesling Sekt

Nahe wines, especially the Rieslings, are one of the best kept secrets in Germany. You should visit this internationally little known wine region. It’s just about an hours drive west of Frankfurt Airport. I promise you: you will not regret it.

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

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2007 Pongelli – Villa Bucci, Le Marche, Italy

August 30, 2010

2007 Pongelli, Villa Bucci

I have written about a wine from Villa Bucci some time ago (it’s Verdicchio). When I bought wines from Il Grappolo Divino and Alessandro Mauceri in Frascati, I also choose a red wine from Villa Bucci, the ‘2007 Pongelli’. This wine is a blend of 50/50 Montepulciano and Sangiovese grapes with 13.5% alcohol.

I served it slightly cooler than normal. Well, it was one of these hot days in Rome where you come out only in the evening. We had it without food, just like that, while sitting under the olive trees. It was a great experience to taste it.

The colour is a strong ruby red. Raspberry aromas were there with some hints of vanilla and leather. The tannins are soft and mellow. The wine has a good structure, is full bodied and has a strong finish. The Parker-point-fans give him 86-88 of 100. My verdict: if I only could get my hands on some bottles of this wine here in Bangkok.

If you are in Rome you are in a better position. Just go and visit the Castelli Romani; stop by in Frascati and see Alessandro Mauceri and his new wine shop: Il Grappolo Divino. There you can also buy the ‘Pongelli’ (among many other treasures).

Address:
Il Grappolo Divino
Via dell’Olmo, 37
00044 Frascati
Italy
Tel.: +39-6-89026061

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Villa Bucci – wine from Le Marche

July 19, 2010

2008 Bucci Classico Superiore DOC

From Alessandro Mauceri and Il Grappolo Divino (Frascati) I acquired two bottles of wine from Villa Bucci, a red and a white one. Villa Bucci is located in Montecarotto (Pongelli), in the Le Marche region. The wines from this region are little known by the mainstream but definitely worth to be explored further.

Villa Bucci Verdicchio

Villa Bucci is a jewel of a winery from the Le Marche region. I was so happy with this discovery. Their Verdicchio wines are all made from their own grapes, grown on 21 ha at Castelli di Jesi.

Italy is maybe the place with the highest number of native vine varieties. Verdicchio, mainly grown in Le Marche, is one of them. High in acidity, the grape makes excellent white wines, fruity and nutty (almonds) with a capacity for aging gracefully.

Back label of 2008 Bucci Verdicchio

My bottle from 2008 had no time for that. We consumed it on a beautiful summers night with a delicious pasta. It is a young but elegant wine, with a golden greenish colour, fruity and fresh with a light almond aroma.

Thanks Alessandro for this selection. I highly recommend to everyone to try the wines from Villa Bucci in particular and Le Marche in general. Great learning.

Our pasta dish

Address:
Azienda Agricola F.lli BUCCI
Via Cona, 30
60010 Ostra Vetere (AN), Italy
e-mail: bucciwines@villabucci.com
Tel./Fax +39-71-964179
www.villabucci.com

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Chapel Hill 2009 Savagnin

June 25, 2010

While wandering aimlessly around in Ho Chi Minh City, I found a wine shop which caught my interest. It’s name was “Bacchus Corner”. Later I learned that there is also a Bacchus Corner wine shop in Hanoi. I browsed through their shelves and picked up an interesting bottle of wine. A ‘2009 Il Vescovo Savagnin’ by Chapel Hill Winery in McLaren Vale, South Australia.

2009 Savagnin by Chapel Hill in an unorthodox wine glass

When I bought the bottle I did not fully understand and appreciate what treasure I had acquired. I bought the wine because I had never before heard about the grape variety. What is Savagnin?

Well, Savagnin Blanc is a French grape variety grown mainly in the Jura region. However, Savagnin Blanc is also known as Traminer, grown around Tramin, a smlal Tyrolean town in Northern Italy. Experts think that the variety has “traveled” along the Alp mountains to the Jura region of France.

I also bought it because I found that most wines on offer were quite expensive. 340.000 Dong which is about US $ 17 is not small money for a bottle of white.

Chapel Hill Winery is of cause a well known producer of premium and award winning wines in McLaren Vale, South Australia. If you want to know more about this fascinating wine region, please visit the blog called “Lonely Grape” by Shane which makes an interesting read (it also contains interesting video clips).

2009 Savagnin

When researching this wine, I discovered that wine critics had awarded it 92 Parker point! Woh, I thought, what did I accidentally buy? The wine maker is Michael Fragos, and he has done an excellent job.

Alcohol is low (12.5%), and colour is a straw yellow. The wine is fresh and clean and shows fruity (lemon) and flowery aromas. It finishes rather abruptly but that does not take away anything from this exuberant and explosive white wine.

The crucial question you might ask is: Would I make it my house wine? Well, probably not. First of all it is not available in Bangkok were I live. Second, because of the price I most probably could not afford to drink it regularly. If you reside in Australia you belong to the lucky ones, I guess. My suggestion: indulge yourself.

Back label

If you are visiting Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City and you stay in the Rex Hotel, Bacchus is just around the corner in walking distance. Check it out.

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Long Row Cabernet Sauvignon, Angove Family, Winemakers from South Australia

June 17, 2010

2007 Long Row Cabernet Sauvignon

The Angove family is one of the oldest wine making families in South Australia. Five generations of wine-making tradition, that’s a lot given the youth of Australia as a country. Founded in 1886 in Adelaide, the Angove Family Company is one of the largest private wine producers in the country.

With a total area under vines of about 480 ha, Angove is not a small operation. It’s Nanya vineyard is located in the flats of Riverland, in South Australia. Endless rows of vines dominate the view. Some of them are 5 km in length, a frightening thought for a German like me. It must be tiresome to work in these vineyards. The grapes are, of course, machine harvested.

The 2007 Long Row Cabernet Sauvignon is a blend, made of fruit sourced from across various wine regions in South Australia. The Long Row brand was established in 2003. This wine was classified by the Australian wine critic Jeremy Oliver in “The Australian Wine Annual” as a wine of “Top Ten Bargain Range”.

In fact it is a very nice drink, fruity, solid with structure and a good finish. In Australia you can have it for about A$ 10 per bottle, in Thailand you have to pay three times that amount.

I like the colour. Since I do not drink much Cabernet Sauvignon, the experience with this Angove Family Long Row wine, was pleasantly surprising. I will have to find out if our supermarket carries it as well or I will ask my wine merchant to locate a couple of bottles for me.

If you are in South Australia you might visit the two cellar door facilities operated by Angove, one at the Renmark Winery, the second at the original winery at Tea Tree Gully. Please visit their website for instructions how to get there.

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At the winemakers home – Timo Mayer, Yarra Valley

April 30, 2010

Timo Mayer and his Mayer Vineyard are well known among the wine fraternity in Australia, Germany and the UK. Timo is wine maker at Gembrook Hills and he has his own vineyard in the Yarra Valley. The Mayer Vineyard is what is called a boutique vineyard. Timo is also member of The South Pack, a group of innovative and independent winemakers in Victoria.

We know each other since many years. In fact Timo made the second vintage of our Two Hills Sauvignon Blanc (2002), which won a bronze medal at the Singapore Wine Show. Since many years our two families have been together, usually for skiing on Mount Buller, eating and drinking, either at our vineyard in Glenburn or at Timo and Ronda’s place, the Mayer Vineyard.

Also this time Timo and Ronda invited us for a gourmet dinner after an afternoon of ice skating and a visit of the Victoria market in Melbourne. The latter program was only attended by our two daughters; the old folks were only in for the eating and drinking part. Needless to say, Timo is not just an excellent wine maker but also an excellent cook.

Timo Mayer in the kitchen

My pictures of the event were somehow heavily affected by the enthusiasm of our re-union, and maybe, maybe, the alcohol of the many wines we tasted. Anyway, I do not have excellent pictures to show you. The longer the evening went on, the more terrible my pictures became. Bear with me. It was a great evening.

But let us start with the food. Out of this fine piece of tuna below, Timo made a delicious sashimi (second picture below). After that we ha another entrée, garlic prawns. The fist main dish was mussels with chorizo sausage chunks followed by some fish (white-head for the kids, and tuna). We were not in the position to eat another main course, although there was beef and various other meats waiting for us. What a wonderful feast that was. Delicious stuff.

Tuna

Sashimi Timo style

Garlic prawns

Mussles with chorizo sausages and herbs

The wines we tasted before, during and after the meal were:

• 2006 Vintage Yarra Burn Sparkling, Yarra Valley

• 2009 Bloody Hill Chardonnay, Mayer Vineyard, Yarra Valley

• 2008 Bloody Hill Rose, Mayer Vineyard, Yarra Valley

• Grande Signature de Rapatel, Roussanne-Bourboulenc, by Gérard Eyraud, France

• 2008 Bloody Hill Pinot Noir, Mayer Vineyard (and we had the 2009 vintage as cleanskin)

• 2008 Les Griottes, Beaujolais, by Pierre-Marie Chermente, France

• 2007 Syrah, Domaine des Rapatel, Gérard Eyraud, France

• 2006 Big Betty Shiraz, Mayer Vineyard, Yarra Valley

• 1996 Cornas, by Thierry Allemand, France

I did not take tasting notes, this was a social event and not a formal wine tasting. Below you will find photos of some the bottles. The two bottles from Domaine de Rapatel are not represented. You can find reviews in my earlier blog entries.

Vintage Yarra Burn Sparkling

This Yarra Burn is a wonderful cool climate sparkling wine, a classical blend of Pinot Noir (58%), Chardonnay (35%) and Pinot Meunier (7%), from the Yarra Valley. The price is about A$ 22/bottle, great price-value relationship.

2009 Bloody Hill Chardonnay, Mayer Vineyard

Just released, this young white wine from the Mayer Vineyard, although low in alcohol, is an easy drinking but very fine and delicate specimen of a modern Yarra Valley Chardonnay. It has funk, is zesty and very harmonious.

2008 Bloody Hill Rose, Mayer Vineyard

Great wine for hot days and not so hot days. We compared the Bloody Hill Rose with the Grand Signature de Rapatel and found to our amazement that both wines, despite being of such different origins, go well with the garlic prawns.

2008 Les Griottes, Beaujolais, France

Ha, this fine wine from Beaujolais by Marcel Lapierre of Domaine du Vissoux, is just a very seductive drink. Made of Gamay grapes it represents the traditional style of a truly grand Beaujolais. It is not as fruity (among them strawberry) as the “nouveau” wines but has the structure and depth we treasure so much. The carbonic maceration gives it some banana flavours. It is low in alcohol but rich in flavour. Get a bottle of it, if you can. The wine is young and you can enjoy it for some time to come.

The 1996 Cornas by Thiery Allemand

This wine is very powerful and just amazing. Thierry Allemand, the son of a factory worker and not blessed with a family history of wine making, is producing two blends, Les Chaillots and Reynard both from Cornas. The wines are made from low yielding, old vines. Thierry is one of the “wine gods”, the masters and spin doctors, producing “cult” wines. It has the “burned rubber” taste which needs some time to get used to in the beginning.

The Shiraz pannel

From left to right, we drank the Syrah by Domaine de Rapatel, 2008 and 2009 Big Betty Shiraz by the Mayer Vineyard and the 1996 Cornas by Thierry Allemand. Whereas the Domaine de Rapatel Syrah is “raisin” wine, made from very ripe fruit, heavy and full of fruit flavour, the Mayer wines try to be less of that style.

Timo sees the Cornas as a benchmark for his own Shiraz wines. Both Big Betty Shiraz vintages follow the traditional wine making of Burgundy. The Cornas has the “burnt rubber” taste, which is rejected by many wine lovers and seen by some as a fault (which is nonsense). It is also full of stalks and tannins on the palate resulting from the whole bunch fermented grapes. The range of different tastes, just from one grape variety, is amazing. I ended loving the Thierry Allemand style wines best.

The morning after a successful battle with delicious wines

The evening ended with coffee and water. We stayed over. It was just a wonderful evening, a great re-union and the sharing of experiences. We had to get up the next morning fairly early because Lucy and Charlotte were going horse riding. Getting up was not the slightest problem, we were still enchanted by the magical evening. Thanks folks.

PS: The Bloody Hill Pinot Noir wines I have not mentioned above but will do so in a separate entry.

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Country meals with Rocky Passes Syrah 2005

April 24, 2010

Chicken, vegetables and cauliflower

Lunch in the vineyard is always a highlight, especially if the weather allows us to have it on the terrace outside with those spectacular valley views. Of course wine is an important ingredient in a successful lunch. We had another bottle of Rocky Passes Syrah, the 2006 vintage this time. It received 92/100 Parker Points by James Halliday.

2005 Rocky Passes Syrah

Later the same day we followed the 2006 vintage with a 2005 Syrah. I had just one bottle of the 2005 vintage left which had received a whopping 94/100 Parker Points. Vitto Oles is doing a great job on these stony slopes of Rocky Passes Estate. Good food and good wine, that’s what makes a great day. The other two ingredients are old friends and good music.

Hope you have a good Saturday yourself.

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Backyard vintner

April 20, 2010

Pips Paddock, Springvale, Yarra Glen

The current overproduction of wine grapes is a great worry for many of the small, medium as well as large producers. Especially for fruit growers the outlook is bleak. Nobody wants to buy your grapes if the slightest deviation from “perfect” is detectable. They just walk away from you and let you sit on the fruit. It’s a buyers market.

However, there are options. One is to make your own wine. Not much equipment is required and space is usually available, even if it is on the back porch of the house.

The new stainless steel tanks on the back porch

My friend Gayle Jewson from Springvale, Yarra Glen did exactly that. The grapes were hand picked and sorted, pressed, destemmed and dumped in new stainless steel vats for fermentation.

When we arrived I tasted the “brew” for the first time. Two weeks later I had a second tasting opportunity. What a difference two weeks can make? Amazing. I think Gayle’s Pinot Noir is on the right track and her Chardonnay is just lovely. Lock out for Pips Paddock Pinot and Chardonnay this year. There is only very limited supply. Visit Gayle on her farm and/or order by phone.

Tasting if fun

The backyard vintner in action

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