What to Drink When a Somm Comes to Dinner
It is Friday night and I’m terrified. In 24 hours, a top sommelier is coming to our house for dinner. A sommelier who puts together…
A Remembrance of German Wines Past
My twenty-something self left two gifts for the older man I would become: a doctorate in applied mathematics and four small, looseleaf notebooks. The degree…
Gemischter Satz, Mixed Messages
I reach down to the baggage carousel and slip the strap over my shoulder, the weight of a month’s traveling slowly spreading through my frame,…
Die Rebe ist ein Sonnenkind
for S.B. with love Die Rebe ist ein Sonnenkind. Sie liebt den Berg und haβt den Wind.So open your door already—for god’s sake, just let…
Wine Meets Literature in Wiesbaden
The intimate wine bar from Holger Schwedler, the size of a Texas walk-in closet, sat off a quiet pedestrian alley not far from the famous curative hot spring of Wiesbaden, the Kochbrunnen. Too small for a kitchen, the wine bar encouraged patrons to bring their own vittles, which, like the guests, included a variety…
Hermannshöhle Hallelujah
Her child, she thinks, is a Riesling. Of all the varieties in the world, she inevitably returns to this one. There is something in the…
Letter to My Younger Somm Self
Don’t let anyone tell you those rocks are a waste of time. Twenty-five years from now, sitting in a Koblenz classroom on your first day…
Something Red
The wine stood on a high shelf, past tense very much called for, because moments after the waitress leapt for it — leapt, did not…
The Greatness of Small
Truth be told, I relish the fact that the phrase “kabinett trocken” feels like an oxymoron to so many people. For all reasonable drinkers who…