Riesling Riesling Riesling!!!

Today was a festival of Rieslings.

Luckily Steve was feeling better and we were able to go to two different wineries for tastings.

They couldn't have been more different from each other.

The first place we went was Maximin Grunhaus. The website declared that they were open for tastings from 8am-12pm, and so we just showed up at around 11:15. We knocked on the door, and walked around the whole property, but no one was there.

We decided to try somewhere else, and as we drove away, my brilliant hubby observed that the sign at the driveway for the winery actually pointed up toward another driveway just up the hill. This driveway took us to another side of the property with an open cargo door in which you could see crates, bottles, cases of wine, etc.

Inside we found one lone guy, in his working overalls, who led us into a small office with a table and chairs. He brought us glasses, a brochure and price list and told us we could taste whatever we wanted, at no charge. All told, there were 64 wines from which to sample. We tasted about 10. And he opened whatever we asked him for, he never said we couldn't taste something. He even opened a half bottle of their wonderful Icewine, which they were selling for 75.00 euros a half-bottle.

He spoke very little English and we speak essentially no German, so it was impossible to get any great details about the wine maker, or winery itself, but I guess the point is for the wines to speak for themselves.

We tasted all Rieslings, from two different vineyards, and at varying levels of ripeness. The wines ranged from dry to sweet. It was interesting to taste that the wines from one vineyard were far more mineral-tasting then the wines from the other. Yet another perfect illustration of Terroir.

After that we went over to Dr. Loosen Winery. This was a completely different animal, with a formal table set up, and an English-speaking host. We were there with another American family, the parents who currently live in Illinois and their son and his wife who live in Huntington Beach, CA. The son and wife were, unfortunately dull as dirt, but the mother was lively, as was our host.

He gave us 9 wines to taste from almost as many different vineyards, each of which has a different soil composition. There are blue slate vineyards, grey slate, and red volcanic soil (this red vineyard is called Wurzgarten, which means spice garden, and imparts a slight spicy aroma to the wines).

Ultimately, there are a lot of subtle differences in all of these wines: from the sweetness levels, to the exact types of fruits and mineralities, but I can generalize and say that these wines were very bright, fresh, acidic, with a nice balance of fruit and minerality. Overall I would say the fruits ranged from green apple and gooseberry, citrus pith and peel, kumquat, and green plum to unripe pineapple. A couple of the wines were surprisingly tropical. And they age these wines on the lees, so a few of them had that pronounced toast crumb aroma.

I also learned a fun fact: I had noticed that almost all of the vines in this area are trellised upright in sort of a tall stalk, and I asked him why this was. He told me that they do "single stalk training" with these vines because it allows them to plant the vines closer together and therefore get more vines per hectare. They can do that here because with the super steep slopes that the vines grow on, there is access to sunlight even when vines are closer together.

He did say that they have to be careful to not let the vines grow too tall, otherwise the plant is spending more of its energy on growing and less on producing excellent fruit.

On a completely different note, please observe the photo. That is the toilet in our hotel room. Have you ever seen anything more odd? I just don't quite understand the theory behind it. It's like a bench....but with a toilet in the middle of it. It feels very bizarre, sitting on it, and your body has this initial reaction like "wait, I can't pee here...this is a bench!!"

It reminds me of a bad dream I would have when I was a kid, in which I would be sleeping on a toilet (as one does), and would start to pee, only to suddenly realize I wasn't on a toilet at all, after which I would start awake to realize with dismay that I had wet the bed.

To the left of the toilet is a ceramic jar filled with wine corks, and a book. Now, I understand why the book is there, but what on earth are they expecting me to do with the wine corks while I'm sitting there? There are only a couple of things I can think of, and none of those are particularly appealing. Or G-rated.