The view from the Gasthaus patio across the South Tyrolean valley is framed by lush vegetation and floral splendor. Three weeks ahead of schedule, nature has already reached peak blossom and seems literally bursting with fertility. Wherever you look, all that can grow, does. Bees buzz, butterflies flutter, and the inn is teeming long before even the first wave of spring tourists. The regional charcuterie board arrives with a bottle of Gewürztraminer, amplifying the unrelenting sensory euphoria of flowers, landscape, sunshine, and speck. Skeptics are the ones missing out because Gewürztraminer over the Alps has never been better. Back in Germany, where Gewürztraminer’s reputation…
Sebastian Bordthäuser’s original dream was to be a rockstar. But between solos and concerts, he developed a hunger and thirst for good food and wine — and the people and stories behind them. And so trading his guitar for books, he began studying German and English literature. He spent more than a decade working in gastronomy before setting out as a freelance sommelier, author, and journalist. His work appears regularly in many of Germany's top publications, including Effilee, Welt am Sonntag, Der Feinschmecker, and Meiningers Sommelier-Magazin. Wine, food, cooking and travel remain the heart of his matter.
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…...
Skin-contact white wines may have their revolutionary roots in Georgia, Slovenia, and Friuli, but the umlaut zone also stakes a strong claim for orange expressions. Austria was an early and highly successful adopter (think Tschida and Tscheppe, Muster and Meinklang). For this, thank geographic proximity, shared traditions, a former empire’s worth of fascinating white varieties, and the remarkable open-mindedness of producers, especially in Styria and Burgenland. Germany came later to the game. The country has been slower to embrace natural and experimental styles generally and its signature variety, Riesling, requires an exceptionally deft hand to succeed in skin-fermented form. However, German…...
