Back from an evening of Eiswein, Beerenauslese & Trockenbeerenauslese

Just came back from an evening of tasting Wegeler wines at The Wine Country.

My conclusions:

1. Damn, these wines are good!

2. Yes, there's a reason why Eiswein, Beerenauslese & Trockenbeerenauslese Rieslings are considered the top end of white wines. And Randy is right when he says many people go through life without tasting these wines, and here we were tasting them, just 22 wine lovers in one place appreciating these noble wines.

3. It's nice to live within 5 miles of a great wine shop.

4. There ARE people that appreciate these great wines.

5. Bernkasteler Doctor - lovely, as always.

It was great to see The Wine Country's proprietor and German wine director Randy conduct a class for wines he loves, and it was fun to be tasting with German Riesling lovers in Long Beach.

Good night!

Dinner Parties

Being in the wine business has put me in touch with so many cool people that are food and wine people. The wonderful thing about that is that not only are there cool, fun people to go to fine restaurants with, there are cool, fun people to cook with. Yep, that means dinner parties.

Tonight I'm getting ready for a small dinner party. To get me in the mood, I'm sharing the pictures from the last dinner party, which was about a month ago.

The focus of this event was Pinot Noir & duck, a classic wine and food combination. The idea came about when friend R said she had a number of great Pinot Noirs in the cellar, with few opportunities to drink them with fine food - I suggested we roast up some ducks to pair with her wines. :)

So 6 of us convened on a Saturday evening in April and made appetizers, sides, mains and desserts, and drink lovely things such as Champagne and red and white wine.

Our first course was a lovely fennel salad from Alice Waters' Chez Panisse cookbook, made lovingly by friend K:

And this salad was plated with a stunning Belgian leek and goat cheese tart, made by G & R. These we had with some dry Riesling.

Then out came 4 Pinot Noirs in anticipation of the duck. Two were from California and two were from Oregon. I preferred the Oregon Pinot Noirs.

The 2 ducks came out of the oven, while the port garlic sauce and the side dish or mashed celery root was being prepared.

The plate lacked something green because in all the excitement of making the celery root and and port sauce, I forgot to prepare the asparagus - that stayed in the fridge...

The sauce was kick ass! It had port, reduced stock from cooking the duck innards and neck, garlic, and butter.... yum. The celery root was supposed to be a puree, but I don't have a food processor so it ended up being mashed by hand - very tasty though. A huge step up from mashed potatoes.

R made the ramekins of espresso chocolate mousse, which was enjoyed by all.

I'll likely take some pictures from tonight's dinner party and share those with you later. On the menu - tuna tartare with mango, served with a Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese; rack of lamb, roasted potatoes, roasted mini Farmer's Market vegetables; Belgian chocolate mousse cake (store-bought).

Part VII: Saturday evening dinner at Mille Fleurs April 17

It's a full month after this dinner, and I'm finally forcing myself to get away from e-mails and other business to finish this blog post that I intended to write weeks ago.

It was a superb dinner well worth memorializing here, and while I do have a copy of the keepsake menu along with wine pairings in my possession, I would like also to have a blog post that reflects how the wines and food made me feel, and my reflections on the dinner in its entirety.

First off, let me set the stage. Earlier in the day, I had driven from my home to the small quaint town of Rancho Santa Fe in north county San Diego, arrived to a sun-dappled courtyard where the Mille Fleurs restaurant sits, a bit late to join a group that had followed chef Martin Woesle to Chino Farm. I later joined the group for a bit at the farm, ate some wild strawberries, then returned back for a brief reception, milling about meeting new people before sitting down to a superb vegetarian meal made from vegetables just purchased at Chino Farm. Though the meal was vegetarian, it was substantial enough to line our stomachs for the Riesling trockenbeerenausleses to come - from approximately 1pm to 5pm, we tasted TBAs from 1921 to 1949, an astounding collection. By 5pm, we were spinning a bit, not from alcohol, because these gems are surprisingly low in alcohol. No, it was possibly the sugar high, mixed in with the mental geekdom of having tasted so many wines older than we were, surely many of us reminiscing about our grandparents who were born in those eras.

By the end of Part I of this tasting, I heard the sweetest word of all: "break." This is a luxury not typically known to us in the wine business - often, a long tasting is followed by another long tasting, which is followed by a dinner, often with more tasting. There is usually no personal time, but this particular Saturday offered us a two-hour break for ourselves, with dinner planned at 8pm. Very civilized. I went to check into my hotel with the delicious thought of slipping in a short run in the town of Encinitas.

And run I did, which felt great, all those sugars getting stuck in various parts of my person came unglued while I explored the area (surprisingly hilly) by foot, feeling the warm air change to cool as dusk set in. I was on a TBA high, and running was the perfect cure.

Shower, then dressing for dinner, a windy drive back to Mille Fleurs, and the courtyard that was previously sun-bathed was now filled with darkness and laughter as I approached. Then I realized why - Champagne reception! Or, rather, methode Champenoise tete de cuvee 2002 Raumland Triumvirat reception, a selection of course made by our host Rudi.... a delicious, complex, crisp, focused, slightly yeasty, and did I mention delicious sparkling wine made from the three classical Champagne varieties Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier. I enjoyed my flute very much, chatting with the well-dressed group that filled the pretty, leafy courtyard. And in that moment, I knew that I would never leave the wine business.

But there was more. Dinner was to be served soon, and we found our seats. The group that convened for dinner was much larger than the group that tasted the TBAs in the afternoon - spouses had joined in for the jovial feast and celebration. As mine was not present, I found a seat close to new friends I made who hailed from Minneapolis. We soon found on our plate the Amuse Bouche - smoked eel on a bed of thinly sliced roasted gold and red beets. Delicious. Went well with what was left of my Triumvirat too.

Four courses followed. First, there were the seared Maine scallops sitting on a bed of cauliflower puree, and dotted with deep fried Jerusalem artichokes and garnished with blood orange butter. I always love tender scallops, and cauliflower is just such a delicious vegetable. This course was served with two German Rieslings - 2001 Rebholz Riesling, Kastanienbusch Grosses Gewachs from the double magnum (3 L bottle), and 2007 Karthauserhof Riesling Auslese, Karthauserhofberg trocken "S." Both wines were terrific, but the clear winner for me and many others was the 2001 Rebholz Kastanienbusch. There was just something about this 9 year old wine - such richness in texture and just a core of pretty fruit, that, while the wine was dry, it wasn't austere and held up to the juicy slightly sweet sea scallops. And the wine is delicious by itself without food. Hansjorg Rebholz, the winemaker and owner of this estate, who was present at the dinner, said that this wine is still too young to drink, that if it were out of the regular 750 ml bottle, it would be perfect, but out of this 3L, it still needed some more years to show everything that it had.

Here's the thing about Rebholz wines: they are hard to understand, they are bone dry, they are expensive. This makes them.... difficult to sell. I believe I already covered this in the previous Sidebar Rant post. Anyway, the problem is that very few people get to taste the wine in this context. Let's put it this way - there was nothing else in the world I wanted to drink than this 2001 Kastanienbusch at that time with those scallops, or even without them. The wine was that good. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't other cheaper wines one could drink with this course, I'm just saying nothing else would have been better. Nothing!

Onward. The next course was black olive crusted striped bass, braised fennel, and mussels in a dill-saffron sauce. Delicious! And a generous course - not just a two-bite deal here. The fennel was wonderful and had that farm-fresh, in season quality. The fish - perfectly cooked, crispy on the outside with a uniquely flavored crust, while juicy and tender inside. The wines: 2007 Paul Furst Chardonnay, Karthauser and 2007 Salwey Pinot Gris, Henkenberg Grosses Gewachs. My new friends at the table loved this Chardonnay, proclaiming it as good as any top end white Burgundy. I agreed. I'm not typically a Chardonnay lover, but when a good one comes along, I know it. This was very, very nice. Another pricey wine though, so likely very difficult to sell in California, otherwise known as Chardonnay-land. And the Salwey Pinot Gris is a wine that I have tasted before and even blogged about maybe a year ago - an ethereal take on Pinot Gris - let's just say this is not your typical light, thin, barely there Pinot Gris - this is a Pinot Gris with a velvety, rich texture, not from oak but I believe from the wine being so concentrated and made with such select grapes and care....... an awesome Pinot Gris, maybe my favorite in the world.

Next course: perhaps my favorite: oven-roasted breast of squab, vegetable roulade, wild rice and porcini-jus. This was a very nice dark-meat bird that was flavorful and a bit gamey - I thoroughly enjoyed it though some people at various tables didn't..... so it was a dish that was love or hate. I thought it was like duck that wasn't fatty, so very nice. The wines were two German Pinot Noirs: 2005 Friedrich Becker Pinot Noir, Kammerberg Grosses Gewachs from magnum (1.5 L) and 2004 Paul Furst Pinot Noir, Hunsruck Grosses Gewachs from double magnum (3.0 L). I enjoyed the Furst Pinot Noir more as I found it more delicate and feminine, while the Becker had more wood on it (oak).

The final course was well thought out - for a group tasting TBAs all day, and the next day too, we were probably not the best candidates for a dessert. Which is my preference usually anyway. We had instead a beautiful course of various blue cheeses, with the pairing of a 1970 Graham Vintage Porto out of a 2.25 L bottle (which was decanted). Lovely. I enjoyed the cheese more and would have loved a Gold Cap Auslese, but I actually had my blue cheese with what was left of my Pinot Noirs from the previous course.

This dinner and evening had me up till very late, but I was not complaining. It was an outstanding experience, not only of top notch cuisine, but of German wines not typically enjoyed by people in the United States. And of course, the company. People from all over the world who could geek out on the wines at their leisure over some of the best food available in the world. Again, I thought to myself, would I actually leave a profession like this?

True, most days in the wine business are not like this. But I don't need them to be. Just sometimes, which is often enough for me.

Sidebar Rant: how great German dry wines are

So, I have been thinking about my next blog post, which should be Part VII about the fabulous dinner that followed the first part of the TBA tasting on Saturday April 17. The dinner took place at Mille Fleurs in Rancho Santa Fe, where the tasting took place. I'll talk about the wonderful dishes we had at this dinner in the next post, but I'll take a sidebar here to rant a little about the wonderful wines we had with our meal.

All the wines at our dinner were German dry wines. This is a curious concept to many, because German wines are known to be sweet. This is across the board, whether you ask novice wine drinkers, or even non-wine drinkers, or if you ask people who have been drinking, collecting and/or cellaring wine for decades, or people who work in various parts of the wine business. Across the board, people think that German wines are, by definition, sweet.

Which makes presenting dry German wines quite difficult.

Which makes people ask, why bother presenting German dry wines? Why doesn't Germany just make sweet wines? Why do something no one expects it to do?

These sound like bizarre questions, kind of like asking someone why they aren't doing what the whole world expects him or her to do, instead of what they want to do, or what they excel at doing. Would you ask someone to do what the world expects, instead of letting him or her do what he or she wants to do? Especially if he or she is really good at it?

Ranting aside, let me just say that Germany makes some kick-ass dry German wines. Yes, Germany makes TBAs and all sorts of noble sweet wines, but they are more curiosities, while the fruity Kabinetts and Spatlese are good stuff, the dry wines are solid top-notch specimens, as good as any made in any top region of the world. I'm not just saying that because I sell them; I know it. These wines are difficult to understand and only show themselves after the following two conditions are met (in my opinion):

1. They have a few years of age on them

2. You have them with fine European-style cuisine

When you meet above conditions 1 and 2, then you see these wines shine.

As pictured above, here is Hansjorg Rebholz, owner and grapegrower and winemaker for Rebholz Estate in the Pfalz region of Germany. He is holding on to a 3 Liter bottle of his 2001 Rebholz Kastanienbusch Riesling Grosses Gewachs, an absolutely gorgeous single vineyard dry Riesling that will blow your mind. It was paired at the dinner with the seared Maine scallops on a bed of cauliflower puree, and it was utterly awesome, as it was by itself when I went for a second glass later on in the evening. The wine, 9 years old, was subtly aged, but not nearly at its peak; its creator said that if this were out of a 750 ml bottle, it would be at its peak right now, but out of the double magnum, still an infant.

When you taste these wines, and I hope you will get to some day, you will understand how I feel about these wines, which is sad that they don't get the attention they deserve because people don't expect this type of wine out of Germany and they think it is too expensive and they don't think they will sell, all the while, French wines and California wines of this price point of the same or lesser quality get shelf space and wine list space.

Well, enough ranting, it is my job to get these wines out there and market them and create a market for them and show how terrific they are, and worthy they are, and how deserving they are to exist in the form that they do. These wines need respect. They are excellent, and people should know. I hope, soon, that I am in your neighborhood pouring you a fine example of one or more of these top-notch wines, be they dry Riesling, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Silvaner, or Scheurebe.

Photo Gallery - Rudi Wiest collection: German Riesling TBAs 1921 to 1959

Part VI: Saturday April 17: Day 1 of Rudi Wiest's historic TBA tasting

Bruce Sanderson of the Wine Spectator has just written and published a very professional, eloquent, and well-researched account of this tasting I'm about to share here, which you can find on the Wine Spectator website. Here is my humble perspective.

Saturday afternoon, after that wonderful lunch of local vegetables and bit of mingling, we launched immediately into Rudi Wiest's tasting of his private collection of German Riesling Trockenbeerenausleses ("TBAs" as they are affectionately called) - get this - 50 years and older. Actually, they are all older than 50 years - the youngest of the wines in this tasting were from the heralded German Riesling vintage of 1959... this being 2010, the young-uns at this tasting were 51 years of age. Now, the oldest Riesling I have tasted to date, I believe, is 1959, and that was at the Wegeler Rheingau estate when I was there in September of 2007, my first trip to Germany. I had also previously hosted an older vintage Riesling tasting which was the cellared wines of Dr. Cary Feibleman back a few years ago when I worked at The Wine Country - I did post about that tasting, and I'll have to go re-read what I wrote to see if I had on that evening experienced something older than 1959.

But this tasting went all the way back to a time I know little about - 1921. Imagine that. My paternal grandmother (with whom I was close) was not yet born; my paternal grandfather was 10 years old. World War I was over but World War II was not yet close to being conceived. 1921 - there were 6 wines from this vintage that we tasted and they were older than anyone in the room.

To my surprise, we started with the oldest wines first, these ancient 1921s. Bruce Sanderson, sitting to my left, said this was often the case in these vertical old wine tastings, that the oldest, being the most delicate, were tasted first. Though sometimes it would happen the opposite way. I thought we would start with the young-uns and work our way back to the most mysterious of the wines. But instead, we plunged into the oldest ones.

Those 6 viscous, dark-coffee colored wines, darkened by almost a century in the bottle, were:

1921 Schloss Vollrad Riesling TBA (Rheingau)
Complex beautiful nose of caramel and cinnamon; palate chewy, dense, with chocolate, fig, medicinal herb.

1921 Reichsrat von Buhl Deidesheimer Leinhohle Riesling TBA (Pfalz)
Nose of light, fresh mint; palate rich with caramel candy, mint, quince, orange rind; clean and elegant. My favorite of the first flight of 3.

1921 Schloss Schonborn Marcobrunner Riesling TBA(Rheingau)
Nose is muted while palate is high acid, bright, with a slightly chalky texture, cranberry. Some said this is typicaly Marcobrunner style; others said this bottle was slightly corked, or not showing well.

1921 Dr. Thanisch Bernkasteler Doctor Riesling TBA (Mosel)
Best wine of this second flight of 3. Nose is very beautiful, aromatic, elegant, captivating, full of fresh figs and dates; palate is savory, lush, sweet, bright, balanced. Shows the beauty of this vineyard.

1921 Maximin Grunhauser Herrenberg (Ruwer)
Nose had a hint of TCA (cork), otherwise muted; palate dry-ish, high acid, lighter body.

1921 Staatsdomane Serriger Vogelsang Riesling TBA (Saar)
Nose of spiced raisins, some oxidation; palate very concentrated, rich, dense, brown sugar and coffee, Christmas spice, some bright acidity, long finish.

We went on to taste wines from 1927, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938, 1942 (WWII!), 1945 (WWII just ending!), 1949. Then we left the 1950s to day 2. I won't post tasting notes on every wine I tasted, but I will say that the following wines had stars next to them, and the 1949 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener-Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling TBA (Mosel) had double stars!

The best of the bunch:

1938 Dr. Thanisch Bernkasteler Doctor Riesling TBA (Mosel)
What is it with these Bernkasteler Doctors proving how great they are? While Bernkasteler Doctor is a terrific vineyard and shows its beauty in youthful wines, it really stands out after these wines age like 60 or 70 years, it seems! Then we see what everyone is made of. This wine had a very light coffee color, a nose of sea salt caramels, very interesting and savory; the palate bright, elegant, delicate and balanced like a Mosel wine should be. Fresh and so far from oxidation, even at 72 years old. Gramps looks good and is running faster than you are...

1935 Bassermann-Jordan Deidesheimer Hohenmorgen Riesling TBA (Pfalz)
Nose of caramelized sugar and mint; palate bright, succulent, hint of prune

1945 Franz Karl Schmitt Niersteiner Kehr-Flachenhahl Riesling TBA (Rheinhessen)
Viscous, color of dark honey (not brown, but honey gold); nose of sweet unctuous brown sugar; palate richly sweet but well balanced. Notably, Bipin Desai, physicist and avid French wine collector and host of many big (impressive) vertical tastings, sitting nearby said that this wine most reminded him of a '45 Chateau d'Yquem (sweet white wine called Sauternes from Bordeaux, France). With that comment, I did note that this wine would be quite terrific with a generous portion of seared foie gras.

1949 Joh. Jos. Prum Wehlener-Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling TBA (Mosel)
For many in the tasting, this might have been the wine of the day. It was really able to show why J.J. Prum has been reigning in the Mosel for so long, and why the wines at this estate are revered and regarded as cellar gems, why they command the prices twice as much as their neighbors making wines from some of the same vineyards. This wine, a young-un, only 61 years old, was orange gold in color, with a nose of sugared orange slices and dates. The palate was exciting, rich and delicate at the same time, with orange cream and fresh herbs, tons of complexity while remaining clean. Perfect.

As for the source, this is harvested not as a single vineyard, but as a blended selection of 2 vineyards: Wehlener Sonnenuhr and Zeltinger Sonnenuhr (the Wehlen Sundial and the Zeltingen Sundial, no doubt the best suntrap vineyards in both of those wine villages). Prior to the 1971 Wine Law in Germany, this was allowed. Since 1971, this type of labelling is forbidden; it is single vineyard, or estate wine, nothing in between.

It was an afternoon of curiosities. A great 4-hour long tasting, after which we were overwhelmed with strong feelings and newfound knowledge. The oldest of Rudi's collection had been opened, revelled in, consumed, pondered over, discussed. We would then break for a couple hours before dinner. And then be in for another gastronomic treat.

Part V: Day 6: Saturday morning: Do you know the way to Rancho Santa Fe?

Saturday morning: Rudi calls: "Are you coming with us to the farm?"

"Um, no, I thought you said I didn't have to go to the farm, I could just come for lunch at 11."

"Well, you don't have to, but we are meeting at the restaurant, and if you want to come to the farm, get here by 10 or 10:15."

So, I packed my bags as quickly as I could, and found my way to quaint, upscale Rancho Santa Fe, to the meeting place, which was the restaurant Mille Fleurs.

I got there too late, about 10:30. Luckily, when I called Rudi, he said that chef Martin of Mille Fleurs was returning from the farm with his vegetables, and I could follow him back if I wanted to see the farm.

So I did - met Chef Martin of Mille Fleurs, who was super nice, and because he had to drive people back to the restaurant, I followed him in my car to Chino Farm, just about a 5 minute drive from his restaurant, along some pretty country roads.

Chino Farm, a place I only learned about this past weekend, is apparently a well known high end local farm situated in Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego county, and supplies high end restaurants, but ships to none of them except for Alice Water's restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley. All other restaurants have to shop there personally and pick up the veggies and fruits, like Chef Martin does every day. Which I thought was pretty cool.

The farm seems to specialize in miniature organically grown vegetables - everything from mini radishes (some purple, some red), beets, fennel, leeks, zucchinis, other squashes, cauliflowers and asparagus. They also have French strawberries, those wild ones, which are red all the way to their core. Rudi bought some of those to share with the group, and they were very good. It is open to the public, and seemed to have a bit of a following, and the oddity was that no prices were posted - all the service seemed personalized, with the owner behind the counter filled with veggies and fruits.

***

Back at the restaurant, a group of 25 or so people mingled for a bit with 2009 Schnaitmann Evoe Rose from the Wurttemburg region, a rose blend from 60% Pinot Noir, 20% Pinot Meunier, and 20% Trollinger. When we sat down for lunch, we got a taste of those farm fresh veggies right away with an exclusively vegetarian meal. A gorgeous green soup, a plate of grilled assorted baby vegetables, and after that, a homemade veggie ravioli topped with cave aged gruyere - rich and heavy that would help our group prepare our tummies for the wines about to be poured: a tasting of trockenbeerenauslese Rieslings all over 50 years old, Rudi's private collection (supplemented by a few recent purchases and contributions) that created this incredible, seriously once-in-a-lifetime tasting.