Volume 09 – MMXXI

December 2021

Skinny Pablo sitting in a wooden booth at a mixing station with a glass of white wine

Dear Readers,

We present TRINK Vol. 09, our last issue of MMXXI.

It feels fitting to draw this strange year to a close with a collection of pieces that confront boundaries, shift perspectives, and blow open stereotypes.

Chris Losh’s witty essay forces him, and us, to challenge our notions of what it is we want from a wine deliberately selected for sharing. Emily Campeau restores the humble Tafelspitz to a place of pride and celebration. Sebastian Bordthäuser examines rarefied pairings of Austrian swine and wine. Valerie reports from inside a creative cosmos of weed, beats, and Riesling. Paula steers a course for German wines through a transforming Finnish market, with Mosel as the North star. Nils Kevin Puls finds affecting drama in the work of a few growers dedicated to keeping traditional field blends alive in uncommon places.

In short: plenty to indulge in. Luckily, for many of us, the holidays are here. May they bring health, restoration, and time for celebrating the most essential pleasures — words and wine chief among them!

On that note, we are delighted to end the year with a new service for our U.S. readers. We have partnered with Flatiron Wines, a premier retailer of German-speaking wines, to offer links that make it quick and easy for you to purchase many of the selections highlighted in our pages. Think of it as an extension of service journalism, a step saved between wondering and savoring.  No fear, though, now — as ever — the integrity of the story and our total editorial independence come first.

As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions at [email protected].

Happy Reading and Happy New Year!

Paula Redes Sidore, Bad Honnef
Valerie Kathawala, New York City

  • ·

    The New Teachings of Old Field Blends

    ByNils Kevin Puls

    The year is 1806. The date June 17th. Privy Councilor Goethe sits in Frankfurt — high and dry. He reaches for his quill and writes a letter to a friend: “Send me some Würzburger wine, for no other wine satisfies, and I am morose without my accustomed favorite drink.”  While the line may not be poetic, the composition Johann Wolfgang von Goethe thirsted for is. The wine in question was, quite possibly, “Frentsch” (local dialect for Altfränkischer Satz or Old Franconian Mixed Set): a field blend of some 20 grape varieties, all planted, harvested, and fermented together. What once gave growers a bit of…...

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  • Six Swine Wines in the Steiermark

    BySebastian Bordthäuser

    12/17/2021 Swine Wines in the Steiermark By Sebastian Bordthäuser ​ In mid-October, Koch.Campus invited guests to a first-class pig-out in Trautmannsdorf, in Steiermark. “Going Whole Hog!” was the stated theme: two days of digging into the question of what differentiates the various heritage breeds from one another, and which provides the best meat. This combination of swine and wine catapulted the topic into the Champions League, and raised equally enthralling questions: Is there such a thing as terroir pork? Which wines are best suited to pair with various breeds? How much raw pork can I sample at 8 in the…...

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  • Tom Litwan

    ByDaniel Schönberger

    ​Trained mason Tom Litwan began crafting elegant yet edgy, biodynamic, low-intervention Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays in Switzerland’s Aargau back in 2006. Today his wines play in the same league as top French and German producers. Normally, the Aargau is better known for its notoriously jammed locations along the A1 highway connecting Zürich with Bern and French-speaking Switzerland. The canton’s sole claim to gustatory fame is a carrot cake, Aargauer Rüeblitorte. Litwan’s decision to make wine here may initially surprise, but looking a bit closer, it actually makes a lot of sense. Before phylloxera bedeviled the old world at the end of…...

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  • · ·

    What to Drink When a Somm Comes to Dinner

    ByChris Losh

    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 the wine lists for a global restaurant group; a sommelier who has spent over 30 years training more somms than I’ve seen typos on a wine list; a sommelier who matches food and wine the way the rest of us match our Sunday outfits. And tomorrow, I’m responsible for the wine. My wife draws up a shopping list for the meal, blissfully unconcerned. “We’re not a restaurant,” she says, “why should she expect Michelin-starred cooking?”…...

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  • ·

    Riesling, Weed, and the Creative Cosmos of Skinny Pablo

    ByValerie Kathawala

    On an early autumn night, in a quietly insiderish neighborhood of Queens, New York, deep beats and warping, hypnotic sound penetrate the stillness. Trapezoids of light slant onto the dark sidewalk through the broad windows of a corner restaurant, the music’s source. Silhouetted figures mingle and shift in projection.   Robert Dentice, noted collector of Riesling and vinyl, stands near the door, a bottle of Keller Abts E — one of Germany’s, if not the world’s, most coveted wines — in hand, greeting new arrivals with hugs and heavy pours. Inside, there’s an invitingly louche aura of fin-de-siècle Vienna or Berlin. A slew of wine is open, almost…...

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  • · ·

    It Takes Two: Heidi Mäkinen and Gernot Kollmann

    ByPaula Redes Sidore

    What do one of the Mosel’s oldest winemaking estates and a country with a fledgling wine-drinking culture have in common? The answer, as with most things in life, is Riesling. “German Riesling has become a synonym for white wine in Finland,”” says Heidi Mäkinen MW, Portfolio Manager for Viinitie Oy, one of that country’s largest importers of German wine. “Finns like the freshness and fruit, and Riesling is one of those wine words that’s incredibly easy to pronounce.” As Viinitie’s new portfolio manager, Mäkinen, for whom work and private life has little separation, has kicked off her holidays 2,000 kilometers south of her…...

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    Wines with a View at Winkler-Hermaden

    ByJill Barth

    12/17/2021 Wines with a View at Winkler-Hermaden By Jill Barth ​ The story of Weingut Winkler-Hermaden and its home in a striking 11th-century castle starts with a “small, tough” woman. That woman, Magdalene Helene, was current proprietor Georg Winkler-Hermaden’s grandmother. When he found her diary, which she kept from her arrival at the Schloss Kapfenstein in 1916 through WWII, he “began to read and couldn’t stop until the book was finished.”  In 1916, Magdalene Helene came to the castle as a young woman to work as a maid. Just two years later, her employer died and bequeathed the Schloss and…...

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