I don’t drink enough German wine. I think that most people don’t drink enough German wine. I will be the first to admit that I find german wine intimidating. At least with French wine you have seen or heard of Champagne, Bordeaux or Cotes du Rhone. German labels are adorned with words like Grauburgunder and Gewurztraminer. Gewurztraminer is grown in Ontario and I have been to more than one winery that has referred to it simply as the “G” wine. The fact of the matter is that in a wine world where it’s easy to feel like you don’t know anything German wines can be among the most intimidating in the LCBO. This is why I was happy to have the opportunity to attend one of the iYellow German Wine classes in May. We got to cover a lot of ground in seven glasses of wine.
2013 Baden Gewurztraminer – LCBO 336735 – $10.95 – Gewurztraminer is just great in the summer. In fact, I’m glad that I’m posting this as we rush towards summer. Bright and crisp with nice balance between sugar and acidity. The flavours lean towards rosewater and lychee and there are hints of spice that linger on the finish. This will make a welcome addition to trips to the cottage or sitting on a patio on a hot day.
2013 Salwey Pinot Gris (Grauburgunder) – LCBO 409912 – $21.95 – Pinot Gris is more restrained than Gewurz or Riesling. Not every wine has to kick you in the face with a bombardment of flavours… Pinot Gris in general is very food friendly because it’s so understated. This wine does have some great flavours of pineapple and melon with very nice crisp acidity. This may sound like a weird combo, but one of my favorite things to pair with Pinot Gris is Fried Chicken.
2013 Sander Pinot Blanc (Weißburgunder) – Vintages 413930 – $15.95 – This pinot blanc was bone dry with very strong chalky mineral notes. The fruit on this wine is bright lemon drop with golden delicious apple. The label has both Pinot Blanc and Weißburgunder written presenting both the English and German names for the grape in the bottle.
Our next three wines were all Riesling. Not all Riesling is created equally and sometimes it’s easy to forget that. The three wines poured highlighted three very different takes on how to handle Riesling and also proves that really tasty wine doesn’t need to be expensive.
Über Riesling – LCBO 395517 – $13.95 – Just a hint of sugar is on the finish of this wine that has a lot of distinctly Pink Grapefruit flavours in the glass.
2014 Loosen Riesling – Vintages 599274 – $13.95 – Lots of apples, peach and lime with a slight effervescence on the finish of this wine. The finish is nice and clean with good palate cleansing acidity, but still long. This is off-dry and you can really notice the sweetness to the wine, but it is still very well balanced with acidity.
2011 Bollig-Lehnert Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling Spätlese – Vintages 284422 – $17.75 – I was a big fan of this wine. These are more typical of the labels you will find for German Riesling… and as I said they can be a little overwhelming. If you can get past the words on the bottle (even if you can’t pronounce them) you will be rewarded with a fantastically balanced off dry wine with peach, apricot and a slight floral quality to it.
Truly a crash course but with the most expensive wine coming in at just over twenty dollars there really isn’t much of an excuse to not revisit these wines at some point over the summer.
