Winewise
Around the Weald
on slaty ways.
VDP Centenary - 100, not out.
The World’s Oldest Association of Fine Wine Estates Celebrates a Special Birthday in 2010
How did I miss this ! Sleeping on the job I guess.
Let's all drink to the next hundred years.
More info: VDP
Mosel Flyover. Too little, too late perhaps.
Stopping the Mosel Flyover
Called in German the "Hochmsoelübergang" and presently being vigourously opposed by a mixed bag of international pundits (including Hugh Johnson and Stuart Piggott), local winemakers, various greens, and of course some of those who just like to tag along. So what's it about ?
It's about an extremely high flyover, scheduled to be contructed over the Mosel Valley in the vicinity of Zeltingen, Ürzig and Lösnich. It's well past the planning stage, the approvals were long ago attained, and now at the last minute there's a very voluble, celebrity supported, campaign to stop it, which seems to have very little chance of success, although a positive outcome for the campaigners cannot be ruled out.
Is it necessary ? A Mosel crossing is definitely long overdue. It would connect the A1/A48/A60, via the B50, with the Hunsrück and the improved B327. At the moment getting from the Eifel side to the Hunsrück side of the Mosel involves either driving south towards Trier and then north up the B327, going up towards Koblenz and then again down the B327, or taking one of the few connections through the valley. These run mainly through, or round, small communities, are on sometimes narrow, precipitous, serpentine roads and are ideal for leisure drivers but nothing else. A crossing is necessary.
Must it be here ? Winewise, it's definitely a poor choice as these sites produce excellent wines of world renown, but so do many others. It's also a certainty that other producers and communities would not wish to have this facility in their backyard, and that changing the location, even if that were still possible, would simply cause the protest to become focussed elsewhere. Where were these strident voices 10 years ago ?
This project is well out of the planning stage and changing the plan at this late stage would add immense costs to the already immense outlay.
So what do we think ? We are of genuinley divided opinion. We regret deeply the potential, negative affects on the local communities, but it may also bring positive affects. The A60 is a superb mortorway connection into Belgium and Holland, which are very important markets for the smaller, local producers and for tourism. Many of the articulate, vocal protagonists here send much of their wine out onto the international export market and are less dependent on direct sales. For them a good transport infrastructure in the Mosel Valley itself is of secondary importance.
And let's be honest. Despite the picturesque scenery, the area is depressed. Few tourists, seeing the grand baroque properties and seeming affluence, realise that the area is economically weak. There is little alternative employment to the wine industry, tourism and wellness, two of which are traditionally low paid and seasonal. The young folk get their education and go away. There is a surplus of housing coupled to an increasingly aged population. The outcome is obvious. Property values are low, the properties themselves become neglected. Again, many of the prominent, vocal opponents of this project live elswehere, where there's more opportunity. If we could see just one or two of them taking advantage of the cheap property prices and low cost of living to come here and "invigorate" the economy, then we'd be able to view their comments with far more respect. In the blunt corner of northern England, whence this author hails, we have a simple but fitting expression. Put your money where your mouth is !
We remain undecided. We hope in many ways it won't happen, but ask simply, where are the alternatives, and where was your voice when the decisions were made ?
You can read the protester's side here: http://www.b50neu.de/
And a more balanced article on the NPR Radio Site
Generation Riesling - a conumdrum
Am I missing something ?
I've just been looking at the Generation Riesling website where I find the following text, published 1st July 2009,
"Generation Riesling“ steht stellvertretend für eine hervorragend ausgebildete, international ausgerichtete und ehrgeizige Generation junger Verantwortungsträger im deutschen Weinbau,"
which translates as (paraphrased)
"Generation Riesling" is representative of an ambitious generation of young German winemakers, excellently trained and internationally focused, who've taken on the mantle of the German wine industry".
I'm just a bit baffled. Being internationally focused I thought they'd naturally wish to transmit their message to an international wine public, but I searched in vain on the site for the magic button that would reveal this message in English, French, Spanish or indeed in anything other than German. It's not as if I'm jumping the gun, and they simply haven't had time to make a language concession for that international market. 1st July 2009 is a long way back.
So who's responsible for the site ? The German Wine Institute, and experience tells me that the DWI is not exactly lacking in linguistic skills, as evidenced by their excellent site www.germanwines.de, which presents comprehensive information in both German and English.
Maybe I'm expecting too much and that it's not the site's that's geared to an international public, but the winemakers it features. Or maybe the marketing men just wrote what they think people want to hear, without giving any thought to the suitability of the text for the context they're dealing with. It looks interesting and I'll explore the winemakers featured, but I'll be baffled all the same.
1st August follow on . . . .
So whose wines did we try ? I first met Daniel Vollenweider many year ago, probably in 2001/2002, shortly after he'd established his winery in a neglected but grand old building just outside Traben-Trarbach. I'd been drawn partly to find out what it was that had convinced a young Swiss to set down roots in the Mosel Valley, instead of in say Graubünden, the Vaud or any other Swiss wine growing region. I'd also heard tales out of school concerning an uncompromising committment to high quality, the re-activation of long forgotten sites bringing miniscule yields and, well to be honest, back-of-the-hand comments along the lines of blue-eyed optimism and a surplus of naivety. Of course I was curious. So, along with a handful of Americans and one Scandinavian in tow, we made a date and set off to visit. We found Daniel at that time not only up to his neck with cellar work but also submerged in house renovations, which was clearly a long-term job. Despite all of that he'd found time for us and showed us around the house and the cellar with all the polite good charm for which the Swiss are rightfully renowned. He told us how one of his aims was to restore the reputation of the Wolfer Goldgrube, a site capable of great things but sadly neglected in favour of more "economically favourable" parcels. More later tomorrow.
Weingut A.J. Adam TOO MANY OTHER THINGS CAME BETWEEN ME AND MY GOOD INTENTIONS! It's not forgotten.
Wine Presentation at Rieslinghaus, Bernkastel-Kues
Bernkastel-Kues, 31st July 2010
Released from the web-working shackles of PC, paunch and poverty, I decide to brave the torrid tourism of Bernkastel-Kues, where, midst breathtaking examples of 21st Century sartorial elegance, Rieslinghaus Porn - we'll come back to this - stage a presentation of some of the most ambitious young winemakers in the region.
Porn - not it's not that kind of porn. There are no games of hide the sausage, jiggle the squigglies, or anything of that sort. This is about the presentation of first class wines from the Mosel region, and that's the name of the promoter. Like Higginbottoms or Postlethwaites in the British Isles, and Krumbeins and Leutheusser.-Schnarrenbergers in Germany, they've almost certainly learnt to live with it, and so should we, although, thinking about it, I'd be willing to make an exception for the Leuthheusser-Schnarrenbergers of this world. A little less giggling in the cheap seats PLEASE ! Rieslinghaus Porn, the hotel, along with Weinhaus Porn, the on-site wineshop, have amassed a superb selection of the very best that the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer (pronouced Roover, rhymes with hoover !) have to offer when viewed winewise. Every single one of their 365 offerings is worth serious consideration when the words Mosel wines are on the agenda, although a few great names and sites are conspicuous by their absence. If only the year had more days ! Today's event is the presentation of the wines of four Mosel musketeers, at least two of whom belong to the Klitzekleine Ring (Teeny-Weeny Ring); two of whom are outsiders, "zugesreiste", which translates here as interlopers (I should know); at least three of whom have revived old, neglected sites and made something fine and wonderful from them, and what they all have in common is courage. The courage to take a chance, to try new directions and to base it all upon the conviction that 2 Millenia of winemaking experience is not to be ignored if you wish to mould the future. So whose wines did we try ? Weingut A.J. Adam Details of the wines and comments to these encounters follow tomorrow.
Relaunch of Winewise Blog !!
Relaunch of Winewise Blog !!
For reasons we need not go into here the Winewise Blog has been inactive for some time now.
Today, also for reasons best left untouched, it sprang - well stumbled actually - back into something approaching activity.