Category Archives: Sunday read

Apr 28 2013
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Sunday read

Sunday Read: The Joy and Mystery of Drinking the Classics

Over the last couple of weeks, my fellow bloggers Jeff, The Drunken Cyclist, and Anatoli, Talk-A-Vino, posted two very interesting pieces: Jeff talked about how much one should or would want to spend on a bottle of wine, the classic question of how much is an expensive bottle actually worth for you and does a wine get five times better when it costs five times as much as another wine. It contains a lot of interesting thoughts and the discussion has been great! Read the article here.

Then, Anatoli posted a piece about ageing wines and when a wine is ready to drink. A lot depends on the personal taste, in my view, but I still have not fully come up with an answer to what my stance is. As you know I like aged Riesling a lot…find his article here.

For this Sunday Read, I know I already pointed you to two reads, I know!, but I feel like I found something that contributes to both these discussions. It is a long article by Bill Zacharkiw, the Montreal Gazette wine writer. He tells us about a meal he was privileged to pick the wines for from a stellar cellar (and, spoiler alert, he would love to drink $200 to $800 bottles more often). Going from there, he explores why different bottles of the same wine can taste completely different. His point being that in ageing wine, we never can predict for sure what we will get. He finishes this very read-worthy article with this paragraph:

“Aging wine is a crapshoot, as you can never be sure what you will have when you finally open the bottle. But this, for me, is the beauty of wine. Wine is a living organism. In its primary stage, it is often very easy to understand. As it ages, a wine will gain complexity and depth. And along the way probably a blemish or two.

Not that different from people, I guess.”

Beautiful, eh? Happy Sunday!

Bill Zacharkiw on Wine: The Joy and Mystery of Drinking the Classics

Apr 21 2013
12 Comments
Germany, Mosel, Sunday read

Sunday Read: The Saar and Mosel Map of 1868

The Saar and Mosel map framed (Photo links to Lars Carlberg’s website, where it is uploaded)

I feel like I owe an explanation for my week long silence, but there really is not much to it. There are weeks when writing this blog is easy, and weeks were it is harder. Last week was one of these. I wrote a lot (work related) last week and so my eagerness to write more diminished. I also didn’t drink much wine last week, to be precise: none, so there was nothing I felt particularly strong about sharing. Let’s see how next week works out.

Today, for my Sunday Read, I want to point you to a particular article but also to a website in general: Lars Carlberg’s page. Lars is an American living in Trier, where we used to live, and he is a wine writer, worked as an importer or winery representative and loves the small estates that dot the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer. I have had the good fortune of meeting him several times and he is knowledgbale and a great conversation partner: thoughtful, witty, never boring. He started a Mosel wine, restricted access database last year in which he profiles wineries and posts his tasting notes. I don’t have access to it, but I like whatever he posts publicly and highly recommend you check his website out.

The article I am sharing today is about the Mosel and Saar Tax Map of 1868. When the Prussians took over the Rhineland and Mosel after the Napolenic Wars, they really had not much of a clue of this heavily Catholic area (the Prussian Kings were Protestants). So they established their administrative system and over the decades decided to streamline taxation etc. In 1868, the Prussian government commissioned this tax map. The commissioner, a Mr. Clotten, divided the vineyard properties in eight categories, or tax brackets, according to the net profit made from wines whose grapes came from the vineyard, and for the map purposes made three different brackets. This way, he identified the profitability of the vineyards on the map (from light red to dark red). This in turn, is now seen as marking which vineyards had the best growing conditions or reputation. Looking at the map today, many of the vineyards we now consider prime spots are dark red on the map. It is pretty awesome, and much more a testament to the idea of terroir than the Bordeaux ranking of estates.

Lars teamed up with the Trier Public Library to produce a reprint of the map. Nina and I own one from the second batch of reprints. It is very high quality and gorgeous to look at. We still need to get a custom made frame for it (it is VERY long), but are looking forward to having it on our wall sometime this year. In his article, Lars explains more about the map, a fascinating piece of history. And you can have it shipped to the US as well…just sayin’ for you fellow Mosel Riesling nuts.

And happy Sunday! It’s a sunny but cold day in Ann Arbor.

Sunday Read: Saar and Mosel Taxation Map

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Apr 07 2013
25 Comments
Sunday read

Sunday Read: Why Decant?

A while back, my blogger friend Jean, the Red Wine Diva, pointed out in a comment that I was decanting quite a lot of my wines. That got me thinking, and doing a bit more research. The classic reason why one decants wine, especially red wine, is to get rid of the sediment that might form in older bottles of wine. Now, because I don’t own any really expensive or fancy or very aged red wines, there seems to be no obvious reason for me to decant.

And yet I do. Especially younger red wines. For me, it makes sense: these wines are often still very closed and tight, with strong tannins that had not time to settle. In my experience, airing them gives them room to expand and show more of their underlying flavors. It is a bit like ageing the wine fast. I know many people use aerators for that, but I have none in my house. I am fine with decanting and waiting. There is also a magic to that.

I also tend to decant older Rieslings (eight years plus) in order to give them some exposure to air so that it can open up after the time in the bottle. It is a delicate balance, just like with older reds, because too much air can kill them, too. So I make a habit of trying the wine first and then deciding whether it needs air or not.

During my research, I found this article by Sandra Jordan (it is an excerpt from her book on decanting) on Epicurean. I thought it summarized the pros and cons quite well. I hope you will find it helpful.

Have a great Sunday, as always!

Sandra Jordan: Why Decant? The Risks and Rewards of a Ritual

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