At the Summa wine fair a small crowd gathers in the shadows of ancient buildings and Alpine peaks under blue skies.
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Is Summa the Future of Wine Fairs?

ByNils Kevin Puls

Gatherings dedicated to wines outside the mainstream have become ubiquitous. Even so, one fair seems to cut through the noise: Summa. This small event, held each spring ahead of the global trade convention Vinitaly, has established itself as the grande dame of the alternative wine scene. But it’s fair to ask: with so much competition, does Summa still shine? It’s early April and the sun glistens on the peaks of the Alps, which remain white even now. On the southbound train from Bozen, the mood is good. It’s 10 am but temperatures have already reached high-summer levels. Arriving in the…...

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Discovering Austria’s Thermenregion
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Discovering Austria’s Thermenregion

ByNils Kevin Puls

To mark a recent milestone anniversary, Austria’s association of traditional wine estates (ÖTW) invited into its fold a region that is in many regards the epitome of Herkunft, or origins. The Thermenregion, often held up as Austria’s Burgundy, brings a suitably deep and glorious wine tradition. The ÖTW’s intake process for the Thermenregion is in the final stages of fine-tuning, reports chairman Michael Moosbrugger. Most likely, white wines from Erste Lage, or premier cru, sites from the 2022 vintage will be the first to be classified, followed by the reds. “In joining the ÖTW, it was crucial that the region’s…...

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Oliver Zeter’s Mise En Pfalz
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Oliver Zeter’s Mise En Pfalz

ByNils Kevin Puls

Zeter assesses the natural bounty of his home, the Pfalz, with the eye of a chef. The soils are his mise en place — the basis of his work — the grape varieties are the ingredients he brings to the table and the bottle. His favorite ingredient — Sauvignon Blanc — has become his trademark. This love came early: in South Africa, 1992, at the Buitenverwachting winery in Cape Town. Now, he is celebrating 15 years as a Sauvignon Blanc iconoclast himself. A recent vertical tasting spanning his first vintage in 2007 to the current release, 2021, made clear the value of following palate…...

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Rotling Outlaws
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Rotling Outlaws

ByNils Kevin Puls

​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…...

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Austria’s Traisental 
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Austria’s Traisental 

ByNils Kevin Puls

​Wine regions are threaded along the Danube, one after another, like a string of Chanel pearls. Wagram, Kamptal, Kremstal, Wachau. And Traisental — the only one that lies exclusively south of the Danube. Its namesake river, the Traisen, divides the valley as the Seine does Paris or the Gironde does Bordeaux, into left and right banks. The tiny region flaunts French finesse and cool avant-garde. But also a rustic, down-to-earth charm. In Paris, the Left Bank is the quartier of intellectuals and artists. Through Yves Saint Laurent it achieved world fame in fashion. Who or what sets the tone and…...

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The New Teachings of Old Field Blends
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The New Teachings of Old Field Blends

ByNils Kevin Puls

The year is 1806. The date June 17th. Privy Councilor Goethe sits in Frankfurt — high and dry. He reaches for his quill and writes a letter to a friend: “Send me some Würzburger wine, for no other wine satisfies, and I am morose without my accustomed favorite drink.”  While the line may not be poetic, the composition Johann Wolfgang von Goethe thirsted for is. The wine in question was, quite possibly, “Frentsch” (local dialect for Altfränkischer Satz or Old Franconian Mixed Set): a field blend of some 20 grape varieties, all planted, harvested, and fermented together. What once gave growers a bit of…...

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Non-vintage Is Timeless 

Non-vintage Is Timeless 

ByNils Kevin Puls

​ Was everything really better in the past? Well, people were at least more patient. Vaccines were developed over the course of years. Under Communism in eastern Germany it could take up to a decade to get a car. OK, bad examples. But even food and drink were given more time. Today, fermentation and preservation are back on the front burner in kitchens — and in cellars, too.  Vintners typically work within the natural rhythms of the year, giving their wines time in cask or tank until just before the next harvest. But some are stepping deeper into the past…...

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collage of three winegrowers standing in front of their cellar doors
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What is the Role of “Heimat” in Terroir?

ByNils Kevin Puls

For over a year, we’ve been living with a pandemic that has shut down more than just our senses of taste and smell. It has forced us to rely on at-home experiences like a glass of wine to satisfy our longing for travel. But what do the places of our terroir dreams taste like? What exactly constitutes the origins of a wine? To use a loaded German word, how much Heimat (loosely, homeland) is in terroir? Flash back to harvest 2012. Max von Kunow of Weingut von Hövel in Germany’s Saar visits the Jurtschitsch family in Austria’s Kamptal for a vacation before his own harvest. Together…...

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Weingut Heinrich: Finding Freedom in Less
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Weingut Heinrich: Finding Freedom in Less

ByNils Kevin Puls

​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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