The sun blazes. The air shimmers. On the horizon four figures throw long shadows across the dry, crumbling ground. They are headed toward a city. Doors swing open. The four step from light into dark, their throats dusty and dry. Behind a deserted bar stands a man. He pushes four full glasses over to them. Out of the glasses sloshes a wine as red as the setting sun. If you aren’t thirsty by now, you should at least be hearing the melody of a harmonica. This is how the opening scene of a revival—the Rotling revival—could begin. The four men…
Kevin Puls works in advertising and PR. His passion for Austrian wine began nearly two decades ago and he's regularly tasted the vintages of the Alpenrepublik from the Wachau to Styria. His weakness for estates that work organically and for natural wines started with Gut Oggau's 2007 vintage. He's also a regular visitor to Franken. He blogs about food, wine, and the people who make them.
Roughly once a generation, the German government pops the hood on the country’s wine law for a tune up. 2021 is one such year, with a new set of revisions taking effect in early May. On the surface, the changes appear more incremental than revolutionary. Yet controversy has followed as various stakeholders realize that some new wrinkles may have unexpectedly far-reaching consequences. So let’s pour ourselves a glass of dry wine (law) and savor some juicy power dynamics. Here are the early winners and losers of the 2021 German Wine Act. Winner: The VDP’S Long Game You can’t say the…...
The lure of 007 and having bubbles at their fingertips in the Bollinger Suite pulls some people into Erlinsbach, in northern Switzerland, for a night or two of intrigue. Others fantasize about being lulled to sleep surrounded by gently aging (shhhh) vintage Burgundies in the Wine Cellar Suite. For the rest of us, it’s a simpler dream of a night that opens with great food and a hard-to-find bottle of a Swiss vintage wine. Albi von Felten was ahead of his time when he bought the Landhotel Hirschen from his parents 22 years ago. He and his wife Silvana are gratified to…...
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…...
Above, a postcard from the German fertilizer industry of the 1920s. At the time, perspectives on soil were changing: Until then, people had spoken of plant growth as being affected by forces; afterward, it was substances. Deficiencies could simply be addressed with the help of agrochemistry. As recently as a decade ago, biodynamic viticulture could be shrugged off as “some dogma about phases of the moon and cow horns.” But now that we find a who’s who of the wine world on the member lists of relevant biodynamic organizations, it’s no longer so easy to cancel adherents to this form of farming. Those…...
Austrian wine splashed back into the headlines recently when four of its wineries were chosen by a leading U.S. wine publication for inclusion in their “Top 100” worldwide. Notably, three of the four made their names with red wines. What’s more — in a first for Austria — one is a woman. The woman in question, Dorli Muhr, has been a powerful catalyst for the rise of Austrian wine over the past three decades. But gaining international recognition for her own wines, particularly her strikingly finessed Blaufränkisch from a vineyard she was the first to champion, has been a long…...
