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…
Daniel Schönberger is an attorney in big tech. Besides the law, he studied bioethics and a little philosophy. He published a few articles on legal and ethical aspects of Artificial Intelligence but is new to wine writing. Daniel’s wine journey started as a little boy when he joined his father, a part-time controller in the AOC, on his autumnal excursions to the nearby epicenters of local winemaking. He loves spending time in the small family vineyard, tending to the Pinot Noir vines from pruning to harvest. Daniel is a father of two teenage girls, husband, swimmer, and cool water spirit, he listens to Fleetwood Mac and Nordic Jazz, works on extending his small art collection, and lives with his family in Switzerland's northernmost corner.
The little wine region of Carnuntum sits east of Vienna and south of the Danube. With a mere 900 hectares under vine, it distinguishes itself through an awareness of regionality developed early on. In 1992, when Austria was still largely classifying its wines by variety rather than origin, Carnuntum implemented the idea of a regionally typical red wine with the name Rubin Carnuntum. But reaching DAC origin status – oriented to the regional, village, single-vineyard wine concept – was still a long road away. This only took effect in 2019 and today Zweigelt Rubin Carnuntum is a regional wine. Although white…...
Trink Magazine | Valerie Kathawala hazards forecasts for the future of wines from Alto Adige-Südtirol, Austria, Germany, and German-speaking Switzerland.
It’s an unfortunate paradox: the very climatic conditions that leave us thirsting for lightweight, refreshing and soul-satisfying dry wines render these hard to achieve. Yet, rather than leading the way in surmounting this viticultural challenge, Germany’s Riesling establishment routinely throws up roadblocks. That’s a crying shame. THE CURIOSITY OF “KABINETT” To understand what’s become of “Kabinett trocken,” we must first retrace the steps leading to “Kabinett.” “Cabinet,” as a term applied to German Riesling, dates to 18th-century Rheingau, a derivative of “Cabinetstück” (alternatively, “Kabinet[t]stück”), in use for diverse objects worth displaying in a cabinet of curiosities or, by extension, worthy literary and…...
One of the biggest trends in wine over the past two decades has been an increased interest in expressing origin. Organizations like the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP) in Germany and the Österreichische Traditionsweingüter (ÖTW) in Austria have both shaped and surfed this wave to the extent that their vineyard classifications — in both cases private initiatives — are now being codified into national law. Switzerland has no comparable organization. The one that comes closest, Mémoire des Vins Suisses, was founded more than 30 years ago, with the aim of proving that Swiss wines can age. Does this mean Swiss wines…...
I’ve been a fan of B sides since, well, pretty much since there have been B sides. Record companies have historically used vinyl’s flipside as a holding pen for unreleased or less desirable concept material. Pieces that don’t fit the brand; supplementary songs with minimal hopes and lower aspirations. Filler. Yet, to me B sides embody the edgy and unpredictable, the vulnerable creative underbelly of both artist and medium. Let’s call rosé, the pink “wunder” of the last decade, our A side. Industry figures show that rosé now constitutes some 9% of the global wine market. Thirty-nine percent of wine drinkers in…...
