Organizing Upcoming Tastings in my Head

We have a bunch of tastings coming up that I will be organizing or participating in. First up will be a tasting this Friday evening featuring Spatburgunder - the German Pinot Noir. These wines are very exciting because they are simply excellent. Now, I admit that I do not have extensive experience with Burgundy, but I have tasted some, and I love them. Spatburgunder is up there. Fantastic Pinot Noir at its best, old world style but with a lot of fruit and not too much new oak, at least, not in the ones I have brought in for the store. I love that old wood for barrel aging. We are going to be pouring 9 Spatburgunders, including 1 from Rebholz, 1 from Meyer-Nakel, 1 from Heger, and then 3 each from Furst and Becker. I don't even have the three from Becker yet but they are suppose to arrive this week, even today, maybe. Very exciting. The ones from Becker are my favorites, followed closely by the ones from Furst. These are two very exciting estates, Furst in Franken, and Becker in the Pfalz, and they make both red and white wines that are superior, in my humble opinion. I'm going to be looking forward to tasting these reds tomorrow. If only I had a cellar, I would definitely buy these for the long term. But then again, my fun German department at The Wine Country is my play cellar, so who needs a cellar? A dynamic, always changing cellar at that!

The day after that, Saturday, will be our Easter tasting, where Randy buys ham and lamb and serves this along with the wines. Usually we feature a lot of Vouvray, Alsatian wine, and German Rieslings at this event. I will also try to sneak a Canadian Pinot Noir in there, from Konzelmann. This is an unoaked Pinot Noir that is an inexpensive value wine that is actually quite drinkable and I think would go well with an Easter meal featuring lamb and/or ham. I'm also planning to pour three German Rieslings - so far in my mind those will be the 2006 von Buhl Armand Riesling Kabinett from the Pfalz, and two older German Rieslings, which are not currently in my possession, but should arrive this week - 1994 Hauth-Kerpen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese and 1996 Hauth-Kerpen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett, both of which I reviewed earlier in this blog.

Next week, on Wednesday, Karina Stuhler from Weingut Robert Weil will be a guest speaker at our store, and helping me to host a tasting of Rheingau Rieslings. I plan for us to pour 5 Robert Weil Rieslings, along with 3 Wegeler and 3 Kunstler. That should do the trick. We'll do both dry and sweet Rieslings and a good time should be had by all.