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 juice is used. Since its legalization over a decade ago, it has built a sparkling identity for itself, separate from its more established cousin Sekt. As one of the world’s best-selling sparkling style, crémant has at some point most likely graced your glass. Wine aficionados appreciate it for its delicate mousse, high quality, and ultimate value. Yet even among those who know and love crémant, few are aware that, far from being the sole property…
Nicole Wolbers is on a mission to raise awareness of lesser-known traditional method sparkling wines. Following a successful career as a textile engineer, a move to California made Nicole realize wine was her passion. In Santa Barbara, she worked in the best wine store in town while taking wine classes in Napa Valley. Her WSET diploma thesis led her to the world of bubbles and gained her a nomination as one of the top candidates of the Champagne Bureau in the UK. Back in Germany, she noticed that the quality of German Sekt had rocketed, but few people knew about it. To change this, Nicole launched schaumweinmagazin.de, a German-language publication about sparkling wine, and offers sales, education, and tasting experiences. Based in the Berlin area, she also works as a wine writer, judge, and educator.
Zeter assesses the natural bounty of his home, the Pfalz, with the eye of a chef. The soils are his mise en place — the basis of his work — the grape varieties are the ingredients he brings to the table and the bottle. His favorite ingredient — Sauvignon Blanc — has become his trademark. This love came early: in South Africa, 1992, at the Buitenverwachting winery in Cape Town. Now, he is celebrating 15 years as a Sauvignon Blanc iconoclast himself. A recent vertical tasting spanning his first vintage in 2007 to the current release, 2021, made clear the value of following palate…...
March 25, 2024 Update: Schmetterling has closed. It’s owners hope to reopen in the future. Are there parallels between German and Austrian wines, small-scale farming, and the queer community? If so, the most essential may be a shared need for safe space. Schmetterling, a queer-forward natural wine and vinyl shop that opened this summer in rural Vermont, aims to offer just that. By prioritizing the needs of communities at — admittedly starkly unequal — risk, owners Danielle Pattavina and Erika Dunyak have created an unlikely outpost for low-intervention German, Austrian, and other Alpine wines. The shop is both an incubator…...
Silvaner. It’s complicated. Ask about its nature or character, and like as not you’ll get one answer: asparagus. With delicate vegetal aromas and moderate acidity, Silvaner is indeed a near perfect pairing for the fabled stalk that emerges from the earth to fill German grocery stores and market stalls annually between April and June. Yet, stop for a minute and imagine: what if there were more? Silvaner is viewed as a national counterpoint to Burgundian Chardonnay or Saumur Chenin Blanc. For many years Silvaner was Germany’s most important grape variety, less inclined toward fruity fun and more toward structure, texture, spice, and earth. De facto it…...
“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 menu. He never spends more than 10 euro on a bottle, and rarely drinks white, but that evening he unexpectedly admitted, he preferred our glass of German Riesling to our bottle of red Bordeaux. A few days later, I hosted a Riesling tasting for some serious wine friends. They have accounts with posh traders and their own cellars, which are typically stocked with Burgundies and Bordeaux. They were impressed. But, I wondered, would they buy…...
It was biodynamic wine that helped me to find my footing in Europe. Yet, as a Black American woman living in Europe, Rudolf Steiner's interests and views present a complicated and troubling legacy.
Over the last decade, Berlin has established itself as a wine city. No small feat, since little quality wine is made within a five-hour driving radius. But in the early 2010s the natural wine movement brought in “small plates and natural wine” bistros and more and more distributors — independent wine stores who both import and buy wines and then sell them to both restaurants and consumers alike — are basing themselves here. The RAW wine fair made Berlin its Central European hub back in 2015. Before March 2020, business was good. Then came Covid. Putting the Neighbor back in Neighborhood at…...
