I've said it before: I'm not a wine snob-- while we like wine a lot and one day aspire to be snobs, we don't have the palate, patience or wallet to pull it off. But I know what I like. As I sit here sipping my heretofore unknown Colle Moresco wine from the Italian island of Sardinia which I purchased at my local metzgerei (butcher's shop) of all places for a cheap €6.69 (about $9.25), it goes to underscore a couple of basic truths about European wine drinking: (1.) You can buy quality daily drinkers for astonishingly cheap, and (2.) German red wines are pretty lousy.
While I have always relied on the steady hand and good advice of my wine guy in Portland who counseled "If it tastes good, drink it," we found that a decent daily drinker/ spaghetti red in the States would generally start around $10.00, (+/- $2.00) and go upwards from there. But here in Europe the playing field has changed, and we need to rethink everything. B found a great summer Rosé for €2.99 (?!) at the local grocery store, and now we're back to checking out wines that are €8 and below as our daily drinkers. Obviously, part of this has to do with location-- when Italy and France are just a couple hours' drive away, transport costs are significantly lower, as are the number of middlemen between the grower and the consumer. Chalk one up for the good guys.
Germany is known for its white wines, and its star grape is Riesling. German Reds on the other hand are pretty hard to find outside of the country, and for good reason: they are simply not that good, and what you can find here is actually pretty pricey. The big dog has to be the grape known as Spätburgunder here (aka Pinot Noir), which makes for almost 12% of all grapes planted in the country (Riesling accounts for 20%). Pinot is known as a fairly fickle wine to grow (I know this because I saw Sideways, and not from personal experience), but the stuff I've had here-- and I'm talking all German reds-- barely... just barely makes the lower end of the "drinkable" scale. This is actually a bit frustrating to me-- I'm all for supporting local and national business, and I really really want to like the stuff here (let the record show I'm a fan of German beer and a lot of German food), but... the red wine comes in just a shade over plonk. I've heard rumors and read reports (like this one) that sing the praises about the red wines of the Ahr Valley in Northwest Germany. Based on the one bottle of Ahr red I had though, I paid €16.00 ($22.00 US) for something that was roughly the equivalent of 2 Buck Chuck-- I mean, I had a Greek red (?!) last week that totally smoked this at half the price. While my search continues in earnest, I have come to the conclusion that with all of the genuinely great Italian-French-Spanish wines at fantastic prices to be found-- why bother? Sorry Germany, but you have lost my wine business.
2 comments:
When we visit our Provencey pals, they always ask us to bring a German white along if possible. I hear you on the German reds. Why not stick with Germany's strengths (the whites) and go Spanish/French/Italian for the reds — because you can?
Despite all of this, I recommend the Weinfest atmosphere of the Neckar/Mosel/Rhein confluence area for trying local stuff, white or red. Done any of that? We have friends in Heidelberg and they shepherded us over to Neustadt an der Weinstraße for a great (if blurry) Saturday afternoon.
Point well taken-- a good Kabinett Riesling is an excellent summer wine, and just the ticket with poultry or even spicy Asian food... problem is, the number of times I've ordered white wine in the last year I could probably count on one hand and have 3 or 4 fingers left over-- even in Alsace, I ordered reds. But like I said, the search will continue for a good German red wine, just not with the same level of zeal as the last 2 years. Always willing to try out the wine fests; we have managed to miss most of them thus far, but watch out 2011!
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