Like a "GG" but minus the price

Although Germany's high-end dry grand cru Rieslings are still a total snip compared to the best Burgundy whites have to offer, I'm now increasingly of the opinion that they offer less value for money than wines classified further down a notch. For me, one of a number of problems with the Grosses Gewächs (or "GG") concept is that participating wine estates have to sell their GGs at a minimum price. The last I heard, the minimum for a bottle of GG had to be EUR 15, though judging by price rises over the last couple of years, this figure may well have risen. This is all well and good if you produce something warranting the price, but all too often wine estates have used the system as a chance to cash in by charging inflated prices for what would otherwise be "Spätlese trockens" but for the abbreviation "GG" on the label. Admittedly, things have improved in recent years, though quality is still patchy.

However, one of the happier upshots of the GG movement in certain regions such as the Pfalz or Rheinhessen is that wineries have introduced quality levels for their various wines which partially mimick the Burgundy classification. Whereas you might have premier cru as the next level down for your Burgundies, you have klassifizierte Lagen or similar as the next designation down in these regions. This basically means wine from designated vineyards, as would be the case with premier cru (e.g. Deidesheimer Kieselberg), but without any "P.C." designation, or equivalent (although Weingut Bürklin-Wolf are a notable exception to this). The next level down would be Ortswein, i.e. wine only named after the village in question - whereby the similarity here to Burgundy is that, while you might have a Cru Village, the equivalent in, say, the Mittelhaardt in the Pfalz would be "Wachenheimer Riesling", for example. Then the "lowest" level - with the exception of wine from litre bottles for everyday consumption (or cooking) - would be Gutswein, i.e. the equivalent to, say, Bourgogne Rouge. These latter wines would normally be the "estate wines" in English-speaking parlance, e.g. "Bürklin Estate Riesling".

Maybe the result of this French-inspired classification system is that the "underclass" below GG is where the real steals are to be found. For the level next down from GG, for example, a lot of wine estates actually use fruit from their grand cru vineyards. In practice, the grapes might have been picked during the initial "dry" run through the grand cru parcel, or they may come from younger vines. Often, the resultant wines can be almost as stupendously good as the GGs, but half the price or less. They tend to be regarded as the terroir wines of the wine estate's portfolio, and are therefore a category replete with suffix designations such as Muschelkalk, Terrassen, Bundsandstein, Rotliegendes, vom Porphyr, von der Fels. Blauschiefer or Keuper - to name but a few examples.

The wine featured here, however, a 2007 Riesling Spätlese trocken by Weingut Pfeffingen from the "Ungsteiner Herrenberg" grand cru site in the Pfalz - cost EUR 10.50 - has no need for such frills.

Weingut Pfeffingen Ungsteiner Herrenberg Riesling Spätlese trocken 2007
Lovely nose. Intense yellow apple and apricot (to be honest, this was the description in the wine price list I received from the winery, though I would fully concur with it). I think I detected some pineapple, too. Minerally on the palate, but with that unmistakable Pfalz Riesling "earthiness". Great wine at an affordable price.

Two Schneiders

There a quite a few vignerons in Germany who go by the name of Schneider. One of them, Markus Schneider of Ellerstadt in the Pfalz, has carved a niche for his wine thanks to his excellent Rieslings and red blends that combine local varietals such as Portugieser and St Laurent with more internationally recognised varietals such Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Syrah. As you can see from his website, he is also good at marketing. However, the quality of his wines speaks for itself. I'm fortunate enough to own a few bottles of his 2005 "Einzelstück" (see photo), which was made exclusively from a single parcel of Portugieser vines that was planted in the 1920s on the sandy flats of Ellerstadt. Portugieser is regarded in the Pfalz as somewhat of a workhorse varietal producing light and cheery reds for everyday consumption. It's quite rare to find them at the high end of wine ranges, However, in a blind tasting you'd be forgiven for mistaking this particular "Portu-geezer" for a top Rhone or Italian red.

Schneider was recently awarded a third Gault Millau "grape", as was another Schneider winery a lot closer to home: Weingut Claus & Susanne Schneider from Weil am Rhein. Personally, I couldn't be happier for them, given that they're my local winery, so to speak. Their range of wines covers Spätburgunder, Gutedel, Weissburgunder, Grauburgunder and Chardonnay, but thanks to the chalky soil of the Weiler Schlipf vineyard, it's the Burgundy varietals which you could call their specialities. Steep limestone slopes - very reminiscent of Burgundy terroir - and a favourable climate lend both reds and whites tremendous elegance and minerally character. The wines also offer great value for money.

Cab Sauv?

I went on a walk today through the local vineyards. Being freelance, I can do this on Monday afternoons, although this job status is soon set to change from the beginning of November, after which I'll be on a proper day job like everyone else.

My goodness, it was a lovely day, and very mild (around 21C). What interested me was that probably around 10-15% of the vineyards parcels in Weiler Schlipf were still unpicked. With rain forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday, I was surprised that there weren't any teams of pickers out this afternoon, apart from the two souls on a tractor who I think were harvesting their parcel for the Bezirkskellerei. From Wednesday onwards, it'll be markedly colder. However, a high front will set in again from Thursday onwards, so I don't think the imminent change in the weather should worry the vintners too much.

Anyway, the way the vintage has shaped up so far, it looks like local wine growers have had a relatively stress-free time of it. The weather in September was really cool at times and some grape varieties (notably Gutedel) weren't yet at optimum ripeness. This meant that wineries were in no hurry to send their teams out into the vineyards. Instead, they waited for more of the sun's rays in October so that the grapes could achieve physiological ripeness. And, over the past couple of weeks, the sun finally shone in abundance.

One particular parcel interested me. The black grapes hanging there were obviously not pinot noir. These were quite young vines - probably no older than 10 years - so I came to the conclusion that the grapes might be what Germans refer to as an "international" varietal. I know that the Bezirkskellerei do grow some Cabernet Sauvignon on Weiler Schlipf, so I'd be inclined to plump for that. I can usually recognise vines from the pinot family due to the shape of the leaves, and these definitely weren't pinot noir.

Pot pourri

Apologies for the huge break again inbetween posts. It's been an eventful few weeks for me, and it's been hard to keep track. Anyway, I eventually got through the six bottles from Wiesloch, plus I've started on a couple of wines from the winery in Bad Dürkheim. Unfortunately, I didn't make proper notes, so the following is more or less based on memory. Featured are three Wiesloch wines, plus one from Weingut Pfeffingen. I'm refraining from giving scores, though I may start doing that for other wines in future, probably according to the 100-point Parker scale:

Großsachsener Rittersberg Weißburgunder Kabinett trocken 2007
Nice flinty aromas with yellow fruit. Elegant.














Wieslocher Spitzenberg Riesling Kabinett halbtrocken 2007
Light, spritzy, well balanced with nice fruit. Sensorically speaking, still dry, despite being a halbtrocken.



















Zeuterner Mannaberg Müller-Thurgau QbA halbtrocken
"Uergh, a Müller-Thurgau!", I hear you say, and not even bone dry. How uncouth. But how this wine surprised me... Pears! And I don't mean that pear-drop whiff of sulphur you sometimes get with recently bottled wine, but lovely succulent September orchard pears. Most pleasant and most surprising. Definitely not for wine snobs.



















Weingut Pfeffingen, Ungsteiner Herrenberg Riesling Kabinett trocken 2007
This just oozes class. The label - which recently underwent a face-lift - is quite un-Germanic. Cleverly, it uses a back label to show all the information every German winery is legally bound to include. Lovely minerally characteristics, quite elegant, but with that characteristic Pfalz oomph.

German red wins international pinot noir prize

Yes, that's correct. A Dernauer Pfarrwingert Spätburgunder Großes Gewächs 2005 by Weingut Mayer-Näkel beat all-comers including the best Burgundy, Chile and New Zealand had to offer. This result maybe isn't as cataclysmic a the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, but it's certainly a feather on the cap of the German wine industry. I think the wine in question costs about EUR 48 (about GBP 40 when you add on all the duty), which I suppose is probably just as well. Reassuringly expensive, you could say.

The most astonishing aspect about this is probably the fact that the region where the wine was produced, the Ahr, is situated only just south of Bonn. The vineyards there are vertiginous, however, with volcanic slate soil. And the Dernauer Pfarrwingert vineyard specifically is, by all accounts, a veritable sun-trap.

Manna from heaven?

Heidelberger Mannaberg Spätburgunder Weißherbst 2006

Check this out, an off-dry pinot noir rose.

This was the first from the aforementioned Wiesloch selection I've tried. Wiesloch is a town situated just south of Heidelberg on the western borders of what is known as the Kraichgau.

Now, the first thing that caught the eye with this wine was its name, Mannaberg - apparently a Großlage situated south of Heidelberg, taking in the towns of Leimen (where Boris Becker grew up) and Rohrbach. So, was it Manna from heaven..?

Well, I would class this as the sort of wine you could drink quite happily on your balcony or in your garden on a barmy summer's evening. Nothing remotely star quality about it, but a wine like this doesn't need to be. There's definitely room in my fridge for wine like this. I don't want you thinking I quaff Clos Sainte Hune all the time... Virtually brick orange in colour (see photo), it was refreshing on the nose, mainly showing what I think may have been melon. Nice clean palate. Still redolent of some sort of melon.

According to the Wieslocher Winzerkeller website, this wine is EUR 3.50 (though I got it for free), and is reminiscent of ripe strawberries, not melons. There's no accounting for taste.

Bonanza

Thanks to a good contact from Heidelberg who visited yesterday en route to the England-Andorra match in Barcelona today, I've been able to procure 12 bottles of white wine - six bottles of which are assorted 2007-vintage rieslings (three dry kabinetts, two off-dry kabinetts - my favourite! - and a dry spätlese) from family winery Weingut Pfeffingen from Bad Dürkheim, and the other being a pot-pourri of local wines from Winzerkeller Wiesloch in deepest Kraichgau (Riesling,Weißburgunder, Grauburgunder, a Spätburgunder pinky...even a Mülller-Thurgau, for heaven's sake). I look forward to tasting some of them over the coming weeks.