No other wine country repays attention to detail the way Germany does. Plenty of us are familiar with the specificity of German wine labels, but few realize the focus, heritage, and love behind them. German wine is in the midst of a stunning transformation. It is moving from safe toward thrilling — and at blinding speed. Riesling reigns supreme, but there’s been a significant shift in the direction of Spätburgunder and Chardonnay that is very much worth tracking.
The world of sparkling wines is changing for the better. The number of producers approaching this beverage in serious, artisanal, and creative ways continues to…
We’ll come right out and say it: Franken (Franconia) is Germany’s most underrated region. If you still think of it as the source of wan…
The story starts with a pedicure and a camping van. Each year when the German wine queen visits New York City, Paul Grieco treats her to a…
Can you hear the music? Forget onions and vinegar: this Franken co-ferment hits harmonies as only Handkäse can do.
Raw pork is the umlaut answer to the American molded potato salad or ham-and-bananas hollandaise.
“When I started drinking wine, wine was French,” my father told me recently over dinner at Scheepskameel, a Dutch restaurant known for its excellent wine…
This is a story for the wine romantics among us who dream of bygone varieties, who hunker down to listen to the old stone terraces…
My first true Blaufränkisch moment came in 2013, at a now-shuttered restaurant in Hamburg. Thirty-six bottles from a swath of Austria’s appellations stood open for…
We like to think of Mosel wine as eternally glorious. The river valley’s nearly 2,000-year vinous history, its relics of Roman civilization and tributes to…
Not long ago, in my merchant days, I scored a few cases of mature Mosel wines from a grower I didn’t know. It wasn’t much…
German Crémant is one of sparkling wine’s best-kept secrets. The high-quality classification requires strict hand harvesting and whole-bunch pressing to ensure that only the purest…
Liora Levi, high-profile sommelier, television personality, and president of ASI Norwegian Sommelier Association, came late to wine. In its own odd way, that only bolsters…
