My second adventure with a virtual wine tasting through the auspices of Snooth.  I would hardly say that I am an old hand at it, but it was another learning experience.  The guest speaker for the evening was Matthew Kaner who is a wine director and partner at several wine bars in the Los Angeles area.   We were going to taste and discuss four German wines, and I have to be honest, I went and did some basic reading on the wines of Germany, because I really don’t encounter them that often.

The first wine of the evening was from Weingut Borell Diehl Muller-Thurgau Trocken 2017.  This wine is a Qualitatswein from the Rheinpfalz.  Qualitatswein is the Second Tier of German Wine Classification and about seventy-five percent German wine falls under this designation and the wine must come from thirteen official Andaugebiete (wine regions).  The grape for this wine is Muller-Thurgau which is a cross between Riesling and Madeleine Royale, created in 1882 by Dr. Herman Muller of Thurgau, Switzerland.  Known for a peach aroma and low acidity, it has suffered the ups and downs of popularity, because there is more current interest in planting Riesling.  I found the wine to have a pretty soft straw color leaning towards a bit of gold.  As the wine began opening up, I found it to have some hints of peach and green apple, which was refreshing, especially as it was the first wine.  I also found it to be chewy, which may not be a current acceptable wine term, but one that was bandied around when I was being introduced to wines, and I found that the wine had more acidity than I had expected and it had a nice long finish.  My Bride described it as delicate and light and thought she would we enjoy it with Whitefish, the very popular dish here in Michigan.  She also remarked that the bottle looked bigger, which I didn’t think much of it, but it was pointed out that the bottle did actually contain one liter of wine, so it was a bonus serving.  She kept going back to it.

The second wine of the evening was Weingut Koehler-Ruprecht Weiser Burgunder Kabinet Trocken 2016.  The label was reminiscent of the old Germanic lettering from the last turn of the century, but only for the name of the winery.  This wine had the Pradikat of Kabinet which is the first tier in the pecking order for a finer wine designation and back in the day, it was felt that the winemaker thought that this wine had more to offer compared to the basic crop.   When I was a kid, first learning about wines the Rheinpfalz was the largest wine producing district in Germany and produced the bulk of current consumption wines in Germany.  Landwein (like Vin du Pay or IGP) and Deutscherwein (table wine) with sixty percent white wines and forty percent red wines.  Weiser Burgunder is the German name for the grape known as Pinot Blanc and genetically it is related to Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir.  I found the wine to have a pale straw color, with a light floral nose and a scent of lime.  As the wine opened up it kept getting more interesting with some layers of spice to make it a fun wine to pair with some dishes that would have some heat to them.    My Bride who is like me, has even more trouble using descriptors, but she thought it was fresh and crisp, and she thought it reminded her of tea.