Franken Ale and Friesian Eel
Northern Germany’s answer to lobster, and a true hybrid Riesling surprise.
Northern Germany’s answer to lobster, and a true hybrid Riesling surprise.
Jérôme Hainz is founder of BottleStops, a specialist tour operator offering authentic and lighthearted experiences of Germany's wines and wine culture. Throughout his travels, Jérôme is always on the hunt for delicious and distinctive food and wine pairings. Despite not being particularly spiritual, Jérôme firmly believes that he will be reborn as a white truffle.
If Emilio Zierock finds it hard to talk about his controversial father, you can’t tell by listening to him. He speaks with remarkable openness about the man. Rainer Zierock, who passed away in 2009, was a brilliant visionary, but also in all likelihood the grandest provocateur in post-war German and Italian viticulture. The powerfully eloquent and often choleric Zierock was considered an eccentric of note, and one who went after everyone. More than a few people also consider him a misunderstood genius, far ahead of his time. His influence on the young wine generation, and particularly the natural wine scene,…...
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 pedicure. (If the queen’s mother is also visiting, she gets one, too.) Grieco is a sommelier, vocal Riesling advocate, and owner/manager of Terroir wine bar in New York. He is also part jester, reveling in the micro-tradition of the pedicure while also pointing toward the intellectual esteem in which he holds every queen he’s ever met. Grieco honors the queens, he said, “because we [at Terroir] are fans of history and culture and [the queens] are an…...
Much has been made of an increase in German wine exports last year. Dr. Karl Storchmann reports that the data are open to interpretation.
Ingelheim Rheinhessen is a hotspot for German Pinot Noir (Spätburgunder).
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.
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 wines poured from squat flagons and drunk mostly at home, we’re here to let you in on a secret: there has never been a more exciting time for this corner of northern Bavaria, where wine, not beer, rules the day. The region sits just below the 50th parallel and at the cool, eastern edge of Germany’s wine core. It’s a perilous position for viticulture. As decades of frost-crimped and extreme-heat-affected vintages attest, its starkly continental…...
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