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I've switched blogs. My new blog can be found here.

Hail storm on Weiler Schlipf

I meant to post this over two weeks ago, but - as in the past two months - I've been too busy to blog.

Anyway, earlier this month, a hail storm hit the Weiler Schlipf vineyard at its eastern extremities within a narrow 150-metre band. According to Claus Schneider of Weingut Schneider, around 30 to 40% of the future crop - mainly pinot varieties - may already have been lost within this part of the vineyard as a result of the hail.

However, there is a chance that the damaged vines may yet recover during the course of the season, given that its still early days in this year's vegetation period.

Basler Staatswein

The high season for asparagus will soon be drawing to a close in these climes, I imagine. Germans just love their Spargel. Unlike their foreign counterparts, German growers cover their asparagus in plastic before the tips break through. This enforced light deprivation results in white asparagus and not the green variety seen elsewhere. I like both variations, but you can't beat the white variety with Sauce Hollandaise, smoked ham and Kratzede (that's Alemannisch for pancake cut into small slices). From mid-April to June, I can see from my kitchen window the Spargel woman from Weingut Fritz Wassmer (he also grows asparagus) standing outside the Apotheke every morning selling her produce to (mostly) pensioners who queue up from the crack of dawn.

According to general consensus, the best wine with Spargel tends to be light and white. In Gutedel, we therefore have a local grape here that's tailor-made for asparagus. This particular specimen, an Isteiner Kirchberg "Exklusiv" trocken QbA, goes down a treat. I do like it when white wines such as this one still exhibit small bubbles in the glass after pouring. If nothing else, the bubbles gives the wine a fresh appearance. On the nose, nutty and grapey as per Gutedel par excellence. On the palate, you can tell that the grapes must have been immaculate when picked. Lovely and refreshing - uncomplicated, but in a good way. And the price? An absolute bargain at just under 5 euro. Available at all good stockists in the Basel area, or alternatively direct from the Bezirkskellerei Markgräflerland in Efringen-Kirchen.

So far so good, you may say. However, this wine has a certain claim to fame: in the 2005, the government of the Swiss canton of Basel-Stadt named it the Basler Staatswein, i.e. the wine to be poured at official functions and such like in the red-coloured city hall on Basel's Marktplatz. Here is the official media release (in German) to prove my point. And here are two photos:

Bull in a china shop

The "bull" is Germany's finance minister and the "china shop" is Switzerland.

Excuse me for going slightly off-topic, but it would be remiss of me not to mention what has been the news topic in Switzerland over the last couple of weeks.

Germany's finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, has become Switzerland's most hated man owing to his rather unfortunate comments of late concerning Switzerland's banking secrecy laws, not least his most recent one about the cavalry and the Indians.

In response, a number of restaurateurs and a local supermarket chain in my local area near the Swiss border have now published an ad in the Basler Zeitung denouncing and distancing themselves from Steinbrück's comments. The many comments below the article (in German) speak for themselves.

"To-do" wine list for the rest of this year (provisional and from the top of my head)

Just off the top of my head, I can think of the following (in no particular order of preference):

1. Try more wines from other regions than just Baden and the Pfalz
2. Try more Weißburgunder - it is an underrated and beautiful thing
3. Try more wines from the best, and nearest, local producers (e.g. Schneider in Weil, Ziereisen from Efringen, Blankenhorn from Schliengen, Schlossgut Istein..)
4. Try more "international" varietals grown increasingly in Germany, such as Chard, Sauv Blanc, Cab Sauv - but don't overdo it.
5. Continue my quest for decent but inexpensive Spätburgunder

Blood, sweat and tears

A vigneron's story is sometimes one of blood, sweat and tears. Obviously, to be a winemaker some knowledge of wine is a prerequisite. Yet, you also need to work tractors and other essential equipment, be prepared to get your elbows dirty, boast some scientific knowledge, be a dab hand at marketing, be able to keep the books in order etc. And good-quality wine wouldn't go amiss either, thank you very much. In short, winemaking is a line of work that not only requires wide-ranging specialist expertise but also spades of enthusiasm, patience and resilience.

Weingut Emrich-Schönleber from the Nahe recently took this one step further by purchasing an old parcel of land situated in their Grosses Gewächs Halenberg site that had become overrun with hedges during the previous 30 years. Over a two-year period beginning in 2006, they cleared the overgrowth, prepared the soil, planted and nurtured new vines before finally harvesting their first crop in the 2008. Here is the illustrated story (in German) of their project.

Rally synopnis

I must say, I enjoyed taking part in the wine rally for the first time. In any case, it certainly helped to concentrate the mind. As always, this month's rally "host" subsequently offered a synopsis of all the various contributions. And there were some real crackers in there, too. All in German, of course - which it made all the more exciting to have my humble English-language blog mentioned in such exalted company!

Anyway, this has given me a lot of motivation to update more regularly now. Maybe I could even write something in German for the wine rally one day.