Barrel to Bottle: German Wine Across the Decades

Thanks again, folks, for tuning in to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Ellis, Director of Education for Binny's Beverage Depot. And here with me today is Mr. Bill Newton. Hello, everybody. And Bill, what do you do for the company? I am one of the three wine buyers, and I am the German wine buyer, and that's what we're gonna be looking at today. Awesome, cool. And this is your favorite category that you buy for. Love German wine. I know, because cairns is a far second. cairns is a far second. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And in the room also is Derek Vinnicombe. Hey, Derek. Hi, Kristen, yeah. Also in the room is Paul Anheuser from the Mosel. Hi, Paul. Welcome, Christine. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. And of course, Mr. Stefen Bollig. Hello. I'm Stefen Bollig. I'm the winemaker and owner of the Bollig Ender Estate. Yeah, we're working together with the Sarategon's Wine Sales now, it's 29 years. Oh my gosh, 29 years. That's a long time. That's a long time, yeah. So kept good, isn't it? And you've been making wine, Mr. Bollig? I'm the winemaker. For the entire 29 years? Okay. That has been just after the takeover of the business. We started doing business here with Wine Seller's and Heritage. Okay, wonderful. And Mr. Anheuser, sir, how long have you been making wine? I'm personally making wine now for 15 years in charge and working together with Wine Seller's 41 years. And these are two of our producers who are artesian producers, they make wonderful wines, yet affordable wines. So they're two of Binny's favorites as far as German wines go. And two of yours, I suppose. And two of mine. Yes, for sure. Right now in our stores, we pretty much, we still have a few 2015s. We have a bunch of 2016s and the 2017s are starting to roll in. Could you guys give us a little rundown of the different characteristics of those three vintages? Well, who should start? Anyone should start. Derek, you can. Well, okay. I mean, I've been looking at the vintages since 1969, so I've had quite a bit of experience over so many years. Things are changing now in the US. People are suddenly realizing Riesling needs a few years in the bottle, especially after two years at least, the wines will start really evolving and mature. We say maturing, but they become of age. They're like kids growing up, like my own kids. When they're young, they're a little bit boisterous and a bit edgy and can cause problems. But after a few years, they settle down. And it's with wines the same thing, that wines need at least two years, good wines need at least two years in the bottle. I mean, beverage quality, normal wines, you have to drink within two years. But our wines, serious wines, life starts after two years. So with a 15, 15 was one of the great vintages, one that I rate very highly. They are now really ready for drinking. They're starting to show some of their very complex characteristics, especially depending on the soil. And that's so important in Germany. We're into geography and geology. So it depends where Riesling is cultivated. And that is really reflected in the bottle of wine that comes out, whether you're on slate or limestone or the sandy soil gravel. You can taste that in the bottle afterwards. Well, I think we'll get to the topography in just a bit. Sticking with the 2015 vintage, you said it was absolutely classic and one of the best you've seen in a while. One of the best, but it's amazing over the last 10 years, we've had a lot of great vintages. Some people don't believe there's been a climate change, but anybody who works in agriculture or works in the vineyards, we have all seen a huge difference in the climate. I mean, it's very positive for us so far. Yeah, I mean, French winemakers, some of them in cooler areas are calling it the good problem, because ripeness is coming a bit easier. Stefen, how was the 2015 vintage for you? Great, big vintage, nice, fruit aromas, one of the big vintages, but also it has the characteristics of this wine. It's still refreshing wine to drink now. You have to 15 in the glass, and you wouldn't guess if you're not a daily wine drinker, that it would be 2015 vintage. So it's a very young and refreshing vintage still now. Can you think, if you look back to vintages in the past, is 2015 similar to another vintage recent? 1997, I would say. 1997 has been also something which you couldn't guess exactly how old this wine was, even after 10 years, because it developed in a different way. A touchy acidity, fine fruit aromas, a little, I call it almost steely acidity. It's a wine which needs a little bit more time, but it's still great now, to have now. Wow, that's great. And Paul, how was 2015 for you? It was a really easy vintage by wine growing and harvesting. We have healthy grapes up to the end of October. We have good fruit aromas, a nice balanced acidity, and really healthy grapes that are easy to work with and have nice wines, crispy, refreshing. So you were basically making wine with a pina colada in your hand the whole time. Fifteen, huh? Pretty easy. Not really a pina colada, but it was... We have not to rush that. We have rainfalls in October or so, so constant working and easy. So it's not that we are pushing like in Vintage 11 that we have to focus in the harvest of really rushing and the seasons work so that we have no problems by harvesting. So then the 2017s, which are just starting to roll into our stores now, pretty different from 2015s, wouldn't you say? I mean, it's, they're not as big. The wines are not as big, but they're, they seem very, very classic, actually. Well, that's the nice thing about the 17 Vintage. I mean, from our side, the production side, the 17 was disastrous because the crop was so low. But from Binny's side, from the consumer side, it's no problem at all because the wines are showing classic characteristics. They're not overweight. They're delicate, very nice elegance and very fine fruit, very precise. And that's the nice thing about the 17, it's very precise. So the maturing potential is very good that the wines will show a lot of terroir characteristics over the next 10 years. 10 years will be no problem for these wines at all, the 17. They're only now just taking shape. I still prefer to go back 16s and 15s or 14s myself for drinking. But that's me. The older, the better. Oh, OK. Well, I'm getting old myself. Gentlemen, do you find that harvest is happening earlier and earlier every year, or are there any sort of trends you find that are? It's depending. If we are thinking about Vintage 17 to compare with Vintage 18, 17 was late because we have frost diseases in beginning of May or end of April, and then we have a nice growing period up to end of October. So for some wines, we are harvesting later than in the average. So light year, crispier wines in 2017, and in 2018, it was the early harvesting beginning end of August, beginning of September. You say that's very early? For us, it's the earliest Vintage we have in the last 50 years. Wow. Same for you, sir, in 2018? I would say it's nothing new, because we are always reacting on the Vintage. So it depends on what you expect from the wine, and the juice you want to get in. So if you have a very ripe vintage, like 2018, you have to pick a little bit earlier, because you want to keep proper acidity. Right. So, and also the vegetation is different than, say, 30 years ago. The blossom is now starting two weeks earlier. So we have two extra weeks for the grapes to ripen. If everything is going well, like in 2018, you have to pick early. But that is, like I said, it's nothing new. We always reflected that what the vintage has brought, and what told us. So the wine maker's decision is just to react on that, what the year is bringing. I cannot do it. There's not a plan A. I can do over 30 years. I have always to have to be a plan B and C and D somewhere. And then I have to go for that. And so that makes also my life more interesting. It's not like doing always the same thing. Every vintage is different, and you have to taste it also in the bottle. That's still from the same vineyard, same category. You have a different wine when it comes from vintage to vintage. That's our target. So for me, nothing new at all. And that's what makes it so fun for us wine drinkers, too, is because when you're talking about really good wines like this, it's not the same thing every year. Every year you're going to get something a little bit different, and that just adds to the fun of the wine. Yeah. All my friends say, why do you keep carrying on work? And I said, well, it's never been boring. Every year gives us new excitement, new surprises, sometimes good, sometimes bad. But we're in for new surprises every year. And it's fascinating, the wine business. So, when I think an American consumer looks at a German wine label, there could be a few things that are confusing. And there are a few misconceptions that I think are really easily cleared up and very simple if you just kind of put your mind to it. I think that's one thing, the German wine labels can be a little bit difficult to navigate. But you know, it's worth the try. Once you understand the German label, it's quite easy for you. Right. I agree. If we are going to a typical German label, on the top you have the region. If it's the Mosel, in my region, the Nahe Valley, the Nahe is written on the label. So and then the Vintage. Then we have the city, the village, with Kreuznach for the explanation of the 2001, Krötenfuhl. Then the single vineyard site, Krötenfuhl. Then the grape variety and then the quality level, like Auslese here. So then it's mentioned Prädikardswein. And that means that it's not chaptalized. So it's 100% made from the grapes, no working with adding sugar or chaptalization. And then we have the alcohol content and the label approved number of the wine. I think it's worth noting the suffix after the village, the ER, meaning it's from the village, kind of like we would say New Yorker. Totally correct. So I think some people can kind of lose a little bit. And it's all about when the grapes are harvested for you, not necessarily a designation of sweetness of the wine. I think that's a common thing that people can get a bit confused. It is something that it's depending on the soil. Something with the body, if you have good ground water conditions, you have more full bodied wine, typically for our region. And otherwise, this sugar content has to be something that is a balance between acidity and also the minerals driven character of the wines. And so it's a nice balance to have, because if it's too sweet, it's boring. If it's too heavy, it is getting no interest, because when you can sip only one glass instead of two glasses, and having fun with friends. Do you have a style, Paul, that you like personally, one more than the other sweet or dry? It's depending if it's hot outside or something like a refresher, go for a light cabinet. And it's with sitting together with friends and have a nice dinner. It's depending what I want to do. It's just pairing the food and wine pairing. It's for me more important than to focus on one wine style. Right. And I think, Bill, you might agree, that's one thing that's so great about German Rieslings is their versatility with food. They're kind of like the sommeliers' little darling around the world because they just go with so many different types of cuisine. Oh, absolutely. Obviously, when you think of Riesling, you think of fish or you think of white meat. But for example, I love Riesling with Sichuan food. Spicy food, I just think it shines, it's wonderful and any number of other dishes. Maybe only champagne is more versatile than Riesling with food, I think. Especially as this misconception that's slowly disappearing that spade laser means sweet. That's what Stefen said, the sweetness is not the important thing for him in the cellar or in the vineyard. It's after this richness, the complexity that grows. So we see a lot of drier style spade laser now. I had one last night. Ah, there we are, see? Very complex. I did. Highly versatile, yeah. That's catching on very fast in the US now. The spade laser doesn't mean sweet. It means more richer in flavor, more complex. And much more in the bottle. I think there's a common trend for consumers to think that German Rieslings are always sweet. That was the misconception. Yes, but I think that more and more they're coming back to realize that drier styles are becoming more popular. Let's taste, gentlemen. Sounds like a good plan. We're lucky enough that our friends here have brought us some samples. So we start off with the red or the whites? Let's start off with the dry. This is also something unusual, because Germany is not just a white wine country. Germany is very big for red wines, which a lot of people don't realize. But it's catching on also very fast in the US. Yeah, so what we're pouring now is Heyden Pinot Noir. Is it 2014? This is the 16th, 16th. 2016. This is something that we have carried in the past at our stores. We don't have it right now, but it's a very affordable, very good value. German Pinot Noir is not what you would call the most popular category here in the States. But I think part of the problem is that people don't really associate Pinot Noir with Germany. The quality is there, especially when you consider the price points vis-a-vis Napa Valley, Oregon, France, it's definitely in the bottle. Yeah, we're getting on to serious Pinot Noir. This from Frank Heyden, Dr. Heyden, limestone terroir, and this is unfined and unfiltered. So serious Pinot Noir. We've been lazy. We're not finding it. We're just putting the juice in the cask and then bottling it. When I first started studying viticulture, I would have never thought we could ever do anything like this at all. But it works. Yes, it does. It's got a very opulent, fruity mint palette. Lovely structure. I think, gentlemen, with Pinot from Germany, how do you find the evolution in the last 10 or 15 years? Do you have any comments on? It happened 30 years ago when suddenly the demand for red wine did change. I found it very difficult how they did handle red wine in Germany in the years beforehand because they offered them to dry, to warm on the table, and then color didn't mean anything to it. And so suddenly people start to change their way to produce red grapes and make the red wine out of it. And I think they picked up. It's a big business nowadays. They are pretty successful. Spätburgunder definitely is king or queen, how they call it, of the red wine variety in Germany. And I think they're on the good way. But also it has to do with turning wine making upside down. And that happened with the first people, I think, in the 80s. In our era, at the Ahr Valley, around 85, 86, 87. That was the beginning of the change. That was the beginning of the change. Some new people came to the market, even people which hasn't had anything to do with wine beforehand, and they changed production. Well, you can see the proof is definitely in the glass with the pinots that I've tasted from Germany, especially in the last five years. I mean, in terms of balance and complexity, right up there with any other of the top end, qualitative pinots, especially from the old world. They're great. With a lot of pinots, especially young, you can get a bit of a bitter finish on the back end, and I like that this one doesn't have it. The fruit really does go on. The mid-palate seems to just never end, I feel like, so it's lovely. Wonderful. Good job. Well, we got plenty of it in Germany now, thank goodness. When we first started, we only had 17% red wine in Germany back in the 70s. Now we're up to 34%. Yes. So it's more one-third red wine in Germany. It's quite a change. The majority of those plantings would be in the falls in the Baden, right? It's throughout Germany, yeah. There's a lot of red wine in the south, but Rheinhessen, Vals, there's a lot of red wine. We're trying the Bollig Lehnert Peace Porter Gold Trocken, Riesling Spateless, 2018, and this is the first 2018 I've had a chance to try, so it's kind of exciting. Yeah. Now, this was bottled eight days ago. Monday, eight days ago. Yeah, at the moment, it's showing a lot of very appealing primary fruit. Makes it very appealing. But okay, just wait, as I said, two years, and then the complexity will start coming. You can open a bottle now and enjoy it as an appealing youngster, but wait two or three years, and wow. I like it. I think the acid is very well integrated. Yeah, it's definitely structured, but it's approachable enough that it doesn't really have a, you know, when Riesling can be very high in acidity, it could almost have a burning effect on the palate. I like this because it does not have that at all. There's a lot of finesse here. Just a touch of tingle there. Very nice. So the drinking temperature is not right. It's just, it's some of these things, you are, it's like a poker game. You have a 2017 and you know that the quantity is limited and then you make a bet that the next vintage will be about a quantity a little bit larger and by following the vegetation of the year, you can bottle it early. So you can show 2018 right away because these wines have a nice acidity, but they're not, it's not too, but they are very well developed also in cask. So early fermentation and early picking gives these wines another two months' time to develop in the cask. And that is the advantage now of 2018. Even if we have a, even if we are short with 2017, 2018 can follow up right away. Doesn't work with every vintage. So we have to build up now 2018 to fill up the gap one day when a small vintage is coming again. You got lucky. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We put all the money in the pot. I like a good risk taker. Yeah. Well, no, it was a little bit of a challenge. I have to say I didn't like that risk, but we had to take it. And in the end, it did pay off. And 2018, when it tasted like this now, it's just a fantastic vintage. So we don't want to talk about figures because they are misleading with the 2018. By figures, by analytics, the acidity is very soft, but the acidity is very touchy and tasty. And so we get by taste a completely different character, as you would read just the manual. So now we're going to be trying the exact same wine by the same producer, the same vineyard, and it's also a Spatelessa, but it's 12 years older. This is 2006. When a Riesling starts to get 10 plus years, sometimes usually the color starts to darken a little bit. The color on this is more golden than the last one was whiter, and you start to get a lot more complexity both in the nose and the taste. So we see you have by characteristic two completely different vintages. 2018, almost no Noborod, perhaps 5%. 2006, almost 100% of Noborod grapes. Set for deeper color, different structure of wine. A lot of this Noborod flavors are upfront now. 2006 was again one of the challenges against vintages because the quality was great, the crop was disastrous. But when you taste this wine 12 years late and you say, okay, that was it. Great to have it. And you also see with that what we're doing in the Peacebender Gold Trafficking. So when we talk about Peacebender Gold Trafficking Späblis or Trittenheimer Art Boutique and Cabinet, I offer you a certain quality for the certain vintage character. So wine will never be the same thing like the vintage before or afterwards. But the category, how, what you expect, that will be always constant. So it has to have a little bit of sweetness. It has to have a little bit of acidity. It can be a wine sitting on a terrace, drinking a glass of wine, enjoying a nice evening or a nice Sunday lunchtime or whatever it is. You can have it with food. That is what we are going for. So that hasn't changed. But the vintage character is changing that what I'm doing. Bringing the grapes in, how we have to decide how we, if we do a maceration or not, even with Riesling, for 6, 12, 24 hours. It is always day by day or grape by grape decision. And I hope you enjoy it. Delicious. I do. I definitely like the noble characteristics on this wine. I think they are very apparent and very honeyed. But you still have a little bit of that fresh fruit component that is carried through. The primary is not all gone here. It dances between primary and tertiary very well. No sign of tiring at all in that wine. So Derek, how long do you think this wine is going to hold up and still be in its prime? Well, I expect it will outlast me. No, the only problem we have of course is the cork. This was bottled with natural cork at the time. So there is a lifespan, but the lifespan only depends on the cork. So if Stefen is recorking some of his older wines, and then of course the potential is beyond anybody's imagination. Riesling can get very, very old. No problem. It's just the cork is the problem. Thank you. That was a really good exercise to taste the same wine, same expression, but different vintage. Very, very interesting. So thanks for that. It really was. So, Paul, for our next wine, could you please pronounce exactly what I'm going to be drinking here? Can I try? Of course. Thank you, Paul. This is the Paul Anheuser, the Keuznacher Krollschampfuhl Riesling Auslese. Well pronounced. Thanks for introducing that wine. It's 2001 vintage, a light year vintage in our region. I cannot speak about every region in Germany. For our region, a really lighter vintage. To compare with the wine we have up front, the 2006, perhaps on the sugar content and analysis nearby, but refreshing now 18 years ripening Riesling, but still a crispy acidity for that loam soil. So it's hard to compare with Mosel style Riesling. You said loam? Loam. Okay, thank you. And it's near to my estate and really good groundwater conditions. So we would say local, something by food, local farming. It's not far away, just 800 meters. Super local. Awesome. But I know why Bill was so interested in tasting this wine because the 2001 was fairly hyped here in the US. He's nodding. He's nodding. It was a big vintage here for sure. But we were astonished. In Germany, we didn't hype it so much. But I must say now we've just opened this 2001. I think we can really rate the vintage a little bit higher than what we were thinking of at the time. If I were to blind taste this, I would never think that this is a 2001. Beautiful. Yeah, this is the thing. Sometimes these lighter vintages like 2001 or 2017 vintages, if for maturing these wines have a greater potential than vintage like 2003, where the tartaric acidity was low and the body was big. So the potential ripening of light vintages sometimes are better than the big vintages. Okay. Yeah, for sure. What happened here in the US., I remember this really well because this wasn't too long after I started at Binny's. This vintage got really big publicity and big hype from our Wine Spectator and a couple other wine magazines. That was very unusual, especially back then, that a German vintage would get hype like that. Yeah. So it did and it really did, it helped sales around the states for German wine. It was a good thing. Yeah. But as I said, we were amazed because it wasn't hyped in Germany itself. But as I said, the proof is in the pudding. When you open a bottle now, this 2001 is so delicious. Great representation. Yeah. It's directly off the library cellar, so the bottle is not really clean downstairs, so it's just off the library cellar. There's such a big mid-palette still. Right. For sure. The nice thing about it, you can still buy it. This still has a lot of that kind of softer acidity, but is there a little bit of botrytis here that I'm smelling? It is a little bit. It was the beginning of botrytis, but it was the fun thing to have, but we still have a good tartaric acidity, so it is nice balance. It's not too heavy by the alcohol content and also the sugar content is not high. It's something between refreshing characters and also near to the noble character of a typical Auslese. For me, I'm just amazed at how young this is drinking still. Wow, being in 2001, it's exceptional. I'm sorry, could you say the wine one more time, so just we have it correctly. Perhaps it's more the German pronunciation. It is Kreuznacher Krötenfuhl Riesling Auslese. It's better when she does it. That's pretty good. Paul will explain to you what that means in English. Kreuznacher Krötenfuhl is a pond full of frogs. So that we have good groundwater conditions. wait, I'm sorry. I heard two things, pond full of rocks or frogs. Frogs. Okay, yeah. It's my thought and I was like, just want to be sure. It's a pond full of frogs. That's what I was meant to hear. Sorry. So many of our single vineyards are mentioned since the times in the Middle Ages with the Monastery have this name given to the single vineyards. So we have the Trittenheimer Apotheker or so. These are wines since the Middle Ages, the names. So something perhaps for you, difficult to explain and to translate into your language. Yeah, well, it means there's plenty of groundwater there, which is so important. We were talking about water just now. Stefen also mentioned that the water underneath in the soil itself is so important. So we don't irrigate, you see. We don't irrigate. We like the wines to suffer. You guys are fun. We have fun with wine. We have a lifelike product. So we can enjoy, we can discuss, because tasting is each time different. My behavior, my confidence on the day is different. So my tasting is also different. Just like the wine. wait, wait. So are you well-behaved, Paul Anheuser? No, it's depending with emotions. If you have good emotions, the tasting is totally different. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks again for another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. It was a pleasure talking about Germany, German Riesling and of course, the lovely Pinot Noir today. So we'll see you next time. I'm your host Kristen. I'm Bill. I'm Paul. I'm Stefan. And I'm Derek. Keep tasting.