In the Vinschgau: Small Growers, New Heights
Trink Magazine | With forests, glaciers, and vineyards that soar above 1,300 elevation, the Vinschgau remains a bastion of true cool climate wines. By Valerie Kathawala
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The Art and Science of Martin and Andi Nittnaus
Shaping our wines is like sculpting: you start with a rock and you chisel out the sculpture,” Martin Nittnaus, 34, states confidently. The arts are never far away when you speak to the oldest son of winemakers Anita and Hans Nittnaus. Like his father, who dreamt of becoming a musician, Martin never planned on a life in wine. He went to university to study English literature and philosophy. But blood is thicker than water, and this year marked his sixth vintage working the plots his father gave to him and his brother, Andreas (Andi, 31). The Nittnaus estate is in Gols,…...
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Roter Veltliner: Comeback of a Diva?
Though its name suggests otherwise, Roter Veltliner isn’t a red wine grape at all. Yet at maturity the grapes do take on a scarlet hue. And this juxtaposition is precisely what captivated Austrian winemaker Toni Söllner: “Even as a child, I was fascinated by Roter Veltliner. The grapes were red, but the wine they made was colorless.” Söllner’s organic estate is in Wagram, Roter Veltliner’s home turf. He has restored 2.5 ha to the old autochthonous variety. Söllner is not alone in his engagement on behalf of the rarity, but rather is one of 10 Austrian organic growers who have…...
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3 Can’t-Miss Austrian Sparkling Wines
Austrian sparkling wines are filled with adventure, from serious Winzersekt (Austria’s answer to grower Champagne) to the refreshing fizz of pét-nat, a style the country was quick to embrace. The adoption of a three-tiered quality pyramid for Austrian sparkling wine in 2015 helped set the stage. The book 111 Austrian Wines You Must Not Miss includes nine sparkling wines that illustrate this effervescent trend. Three I’d like to spotlight here are the outstanding Winzersekte of Ebner-Ebenauer and Fred Loimer, which represent the absolute pinnacle of quality, as well as a pét-nat that was one of the first to make a splash…...
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Weingut Heinrich: Finding Freedom in Less
It takes little to be happy. And he who is happy is king.” This 19th-century German song – with just two lines – expresses how good a simple life, with little, can be. Just how little is something each of us has experienced, almost daily, this year. Finding the joy in this can be difficult, and regrettably few have managed to perceive the freedom in “less.” Two people who did so long ago are Heike und Gernot Heinrich of Weingut Heinrich in Austria’s Burgenland. I visited them in early September, during Europe’s pandemic lull. The timing couldn’t have been better…....
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Are the British Getting a Taste for Umlauts?
We British are not the world’s most noted linguists, but that doesn’t seem to put off some of us from drinking “German-speaking” wines. That said, the market for these wines has had a rough ride at times, which makes their current increasing popularity all the more intriguing. Germany has historically boasted a well-established presence in the U.K. wine market. In the 19th– and early 20th– centuries German wines were famously on par with Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and Port in terms of price. After the fall of Napoleon, the Rhineland and the Mosel both entered a period of prosperity, initiated by…...
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Eglisau: Vines of the High Rhine
Every guide to Swiss wine begins with the same emphatic but overly simple premise: there are six wine regions in Switzerland. That means one of them, Deutschschweiz, is forever miscast as a single entity, even though it encompasses 19 cantons and covers two-thirds of the nation’s surface area. Meanwhile, four of the other official regions are single cantons — Geneva, Vaud, Valais, and Ticino — each with its own story to tell; a sixth — the Three Lakes region — is geographically contiguous, linguistically mixed and, while quite small, celebrated for its diversity. Why, I ask, is there so little…...
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Three Ways to Pine for Zirbenschnaps
The scent of pine trees is a time machine, a brusque mix of barbed, balsamic beauty. I have a million pine memories. One good whiff and I’m transported home, sap streaking the inside of my scraped arms as I scale the tall white pine in our neighbor’s backyard, lunchbox dangling from the rear belt loop of my short pants. Lost in a cross-hatching of aromatic needles. I’m in the warming house of the town rink, my toes aching with cold. Silhouetted skaters float and spin on the bumpy ice outside. A pine fire acrid with resin heaves black smoke up…...
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Eat & TRINK | Alpkäse and Kamptal Riesling
12/14/2020 Eat & TRINK | Alpkäse and Kamptal Riesling By Ursula Heinzelmann The entirely spontaneous, yet infinitely harmonious tinkling of cow bells. The crunching of my boots along a narrow mountain path. The joyous gurgling of a stream winding its way down among rocks, moss, and roots. This is one of my favorite cheese soundtracks. The accompanying “smelltrack” is of warm stables in the haze of first light and earthy, pungent bodies, redolent of the basic facts of life. Wood smoke rising from under a round copper vat. And of course the reassuring, lactic aroma of warm milk and whey,…...
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He Who Controls the Spice Controls the Universe
Picture yourself at a German holiday market (if such things were happening in 2020) — a mug of glühwein in hand and the scent of fresh pfeffernuss cookies in the air. It’s no surprise that these warm, spicy aromas are key attributes in many wines from Germany and Austria, South Tyrol, and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland. And there’s a hidden world of compounds and precursors to thank for this distinctive and alluring range. Much like a chef in the kitchen, growers can influence the aromatic and flavor complexity of their wines by playing with soil type, exposition, vine age,…...
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Sektlaune Is a Sparkling State of Mind
Sekt embodies free spirit, hedonism, even — in its blatant disregard for rules — punk. The limitless maximization of lust for life and the unadulterated joy of the sensual assume the spotlight, while ethics and morals are asked to exit stage left. Whether it’s to christen a ship, toast a victory, or celebrate a birthday in the office (back when we did things like this), bubbles embrace the sparkling side of everyday life. A flash of glam on an otherwise wretched Tuesday afternoon. Sekt is bound to nothing and to no one, neither to food nor occasion. And that’s why…...
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It Takes Two: Eva Fricke and Jenna Fields
March 25, 2024 Update: Eva Fricke and the German Wine Collection no longer together. Apparently, the tango takes even more complex footwork than either party anticipated. And the frisson of friction is real. In wine, the relationship between importer and producer works better when it’s more tango than transaction. First there is the careful footwork of their own internal negotiations, then a set of fancy steps together for the audience. The goal is to position the new producer within an aesthetic and cultural context that would-be consumers will find attractive. It is a delicate dance that requires surprising intimacy and…...
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Not According to Plan: Sektgut Christmann & Kauffmann
Champagne roots and Riesling blood: an interview with Pfalz's newest sektgut Christmann & Kauffmann.
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Sekt: The Chequered History
For the longest time, Sekt was a dirty word. It stood for bottles of inexpensive, easy fizz with obnoxious plastic corks to be found on the street, next to the debris of spent fireworks, on New Year’s Day. Leftovers from high jinks and cheap thrills the night before. But that was then. Today, Sekt’s star is once again on the rise. We cannot even say that it is returning to its former glory because the story of German Sekt today is unprecedented and, quite literally, effervescent. It was the 20th century that destroyed with consummate efficiency what was once so promising, so frivolous,…...
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Rheingau – Past, Present, (And Future?) Greatness
The Rheingau. A small, splendidly historic region of aristocratic estates and superb terroir awaiting an energizing charge. The steady ship in Germany’s often storm-tossed seas, navigating a course of admirable quality through the centuries. Its large estates set global benchmarks; its noble mien, iconic landscapes, and heralded vineyards have always set it apart. In recent times, however, the Rheingau’s identity has become somewhat obscured by the dominance of large, in some cases impersonal estates and global warming has diminished its long-held prominence as one of the few German wine regions capable of achieving consistent ripeness. If it is often described as “underachieving,” the word does hint at…...
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Balance with a Bit of an Accent
“Free your mind and the rest will follow.” Coming from one of the co-owners of Germany’s oldest wine trading houses, one might suspect a quote from Goethe, Schiller, or Nietzsche. It’s actually the American R&B/pop group, En Vogue. And that makes for a jarring, if fitting, introduction to my conversation with these stewards of tradition in German wine that look back to 1786 in Worms as easily as they look ahead to 2019 Organic Madonna. P.J. Valckenberg has the history and the pedigree, no question. Its customers have included the Swedish royal family and Charles Dickens. In addition to a truly impressive portfolio…...
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The New Magnetism of “Alt” Mosel
Abandoned vineyards and hard work are opening opportunities for young growers to try their hands a wine growing and making on the Mosel.
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German Wine’s Radical Love Machine
Known to his 18,000-plus Instagram followers as @soilpimp, Robert Dentice is a German wine collector and vinyl fanatic, founder of the Riesling Study event series, and a driving force behind a brand new project called sourcematerialwine that is set to spread his evangelical zeal for German wine to the wide world. Short of spending an evening at one of his legendary Riesling-, Silvaner-, or Weissburgunder-fuelled music events — and he’d sincerely love nothing more than to have you there — the next best way to get a sense of the radiant positivity he brings to German wine is to cue…...
