Swabian Vibes
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Swabian Vibes

ByKatharina Matheis

Those who go on the hunt for modern Württemberg may be surprised by what they find on the journey. In this stretch of southern Germany, many things work differently. Swabians have their own take on cool.  Here you’ll meet a grower from the hip-hop scene who has the region’s traditional wine mug inked as a tattoo. You’ll bump into a start-up winery launched with crowdfunding. And you’ll land at the door of one of Germany’s hippest growers, 68-year-old Helmut Dolde of Linsenhofen. DOLDE Dolde wears a walrus mustache and, on the day of my visit, a cap someone gave him that says “Wine in…...

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Beethoven as Bacchus
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Beethoven as Bacchus

ByRon Merlino

On the dark morning of March 26, 1827, a heavy snowstorm was falling outside the fogged window panes of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Vienna apartment. Everything was unusually quiet in this space, so customarily filled with music. Beethoven’s house servant walked into the room to announce that a long-awaited shipment of Rheingau Rieslings, wines sent at his behest by his music publisher Schott, had just arrived. Barely able to muster the energy, the composer sat up in his bed, shook his fist in anger, and muttered these very last words: “Pity, pity, it’s too late…”     He sank back into his bed,…...

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EAT & TRINK | Pfalz Riesling and Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup
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EAT & TRINK | Pfalz Riesling and Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

ByJoyce Lin

If you ask a person from Taiwan to choose the 10 dishes that best represent his or her cuisine, Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup is inevitably on the list. More than a beloved national dish, the soup has become something of an obsession — like pizza to New Yorkers.  Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup was created by soldiers who retreated with the Nationalist government from mainland China to Taiwan in the 1950s. For political reasons, they were banned from returning to their hometowns. Missing both family and familiar cuisine, the soldiers used local ingredients to create a dish that evoked the flavors…...

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Statue of blind Lady Justice | Revised German Wine Laws 2023

Winners and Losers of the Revised German Wine Law

BySteven Sidore

Roughly once a generation, the German government pops the hood on the country’s wine law for a tune up. 2021 is one such year, with a new set of revisions taking effect in early May. On the surface, the changes appear more incremental than revolutionary. Yet controversy has followed as various stakeholders realize that some new wrinkles may have unexpectedly far-reaching consequences. So let’s pour ourselves a glass of dry wine (law) and savor some juicy power dynamics.  Here are the early winners and losers of the 2021 German Wine Act. Winner: The VDP’S Long Game You can’t say the…...

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When Vermouth was Spelled Wermut
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When Vermouth was Spelled Wermut

ByPhilippe Grandbois

It was the first hour of my first shift, and of course, it was a “Manhattan Cocktail.” I pictured the flashcards heavy in my pocket from the cram-session the night before:  Rye whisky,  sweet Vermouth, and bitters. Don’t forget the cherry.  To that point, I had known Vermouth as little more than a grandmother’s drink, the bottle dying a slow oxidative death in wood-paneled curios around the world. So after making the guest’s request, and in the name of job experience, I downed the remaining jigger of inexperienced overpour. Later, I would comment to the bar manager that it tasted a…...

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Sober Culture
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Sober Culture

ByEva Biringer

What does one drink, when one doesn’t drink?  Isabella Steiner opts for an oat milk latte. On the sun-kissed, hipster corner of Berlin known as Paul-Lincke-Ufer, a line for almond croissants forms from a crowd that looks more house party than home office. Steiner takes her spot, her poodle-mix by her side. Steiner and her business partner, Katja Kauf, manage Nüchtern Berlin, a platform for “Sober Culture — Made in Germany.” It appears to tap into something even deeper than the global wellness trend. “The selection of non-alcoholic alternatives [in Germany] rose sharply in 2020,” says 32-year-old Steiner. “This year they…...

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“It’s the Nitrogen, Stupid!”: On Agrochemistry, Biodynamics and Wine

“It’s the Nitrogen, Stupid!”: On Agrochemistry, Biodynamics and Wine

ByRomana Echensperger

Above, a postcard from the German fertilizer industry of the 1920s. At the time, perspectives on soil were changing:  Until then, people had spoken of plant growth as being affected by forces; afterward, it was substances. Deficiencies could simply be addressed with the help of agrochemistry.  As recently as a decade ago, biodynamic viticulture could be shrugged off as “some dogma about phases of the moon and cow horns.” But now that we find a who’s who of the wine world on the member lists of relevant biodynamic organizations, it’s no longer so easy to cancel adherents to this form of farming. Those…...

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WeinGoutte: A Suitcase Winery Unpacks on New Ground 
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WeinGoutte: A Suitcase Winery Unpacks on New Ground 

ByValerie Kathawala

​ Home is where the vines grow. We’ve all heard variations on that theme. But just how far can that idea be taken? Wein Goutte offers one answer. This portable micro-estate — whose first vintage sold out in a blink — is the brainchild of husband-and-wife team Christoph Müller and Emily Campeau. The concept goes beyond negociant but stops well short of flying winemaker.  And it presents an entirely new model for a footloose generation’s interpretation of the relationship between vintner and site. Campeau, a fierce lover of food and wine (and a vivid writer on both), is originally from Québec. Her experiences…...

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In the Sign of Subtlety
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In the Sign of Subtlety

ByDavid Schildknecht

Pinot Blanc is neither a distinctive cépage nor a particular grape variety – at least, not from the viewpoint of ampelography or genetics. And what there is of pure Pinot Blanc worldwide is nearly all rendered in German-speaking growing regions where it is typically known as Weissburgunder.

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collage of three winegrowers standing in front of their cellar doors
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What is the Role of “Heimat” in Terroir?

ByNils Kevin Puls

For over a year, we’ve been living with a pandemic that has shut down more than just our senses of taste and smell. It has forced us to rely on at-home experiences like a glass of wine to satisfy our longing for travel. But what do the places of our terroir dreams taste like? What exactly constitutes the origins of a wine? To use a loaded German word, how much Heimat (loosely, homeland) is in terroir? Flash back to harvest 2012. Max von Kunow of Weingut von Hövel in Germany’s Saar visits the Jurtschitsch family in Austria’s Kamptal for a vacation before his own harvest. Together…...

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Drink More Scheu!
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Drink More Scheu!

ByChristoph Raffelt

If there is an underdog in Germany’s largest winegrowing region, Rheinhessen, it is Scheurebe. Vinified sweet for many years, Scheurebe — pronounced SHOY-ray-beh — largely fell out of fashion. But things changed, and with the dry wine revolution in Germany over the last 20 years, Scheu is back, with — to quote Patti LaBelle — brand new ideas and a new attitude.  “Scheu,” as aficionados like to call it, was bred by German viticulturist Justus Georg Scheu in 1916. Unhappy with the many highly acidic and sour Rieslings he encountered, Scheu (the man, not the grape) wanted to create a…...

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Konni + Evi: Rewriting Possibility in Saale-Unstrut
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Konni + Evi: Rewriting Possibility in Saale-Unstrut

ByEva Biringer

It’s hard to believe now, but Germany was once a divided country, and the East was a strange microcosm of icons of that era: Sandmännchen, Jungpioniere, and FKK-Kultur. Not to forget its sparkling ambassador, Rotkäppchensekt. Also hard to believe: a destination for wine fans has now arisen in the area between Chemnitz and Cottbus, Magdeburg and Dresden.  And yet, from Berlin, the trip takes you almost 200 kilometers to the south, past Dessau and Lutherstadt Wittenberg, to a place whose name sounds to German ears disturbingly close to “Lauch” (leek). Laucha an der Unstrut has roughly 3,200 inhabitants, a bell museum, and one…...

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