Michael Schmidt

Michael is likely best known for his tenure as the German wine correspondent for Jancis Robinson’s website. He began his career as a wine journalist in 1982, contributing to publications like the Sunday Telegraph Good Wine Guide, the Wine Report, and Sotheby’s World Wine Encyclopedia. In 1980, he became the first German to earn the Diploma of the WSET. He returned to Germany in 2009 and continued to write for publications such as FINE and Weinwisser, and has contributed to Hugh Johnson’s World Atlas of Wine for editions seven, eight, and nine (upcoming).
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    Remembering Werner Näkel

    ByMichael Schmidt

    On Saturday 13 September, Germany lost a winemaking legend when Werner Näkel passed away at the age of 72 in Dernau, his home village in the Ahr Valley and seat of the family estate, Weingut Meyer-Näkel. Werner Näkel will be remembered as a founding father of great German Pinot Noir, a wine which under the name of Spätburgunder had for a long time simply languished in the vinous doldrums of Germany, before, in the 1980s, Näkel and a handful of like-minded colleagues began to wonder why the grape, so highly revered worldwide for its red Burgundy renditions, should not be…...

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