Category Archives: Year

May 14 2012
4 Comments
2010, Australia, Germany, Mosel

2010 Little Penguin Pinot grigio

Last night, we had my butternut squash risotto for dinner and decided to pair it with a bottle of the 2010 Little Penguin Pinot grigio from Southern Australia (the label has changed from the one they use on the website). The bottle was a gift for the party on Friday. Note the cute cork print. I love it when winemakers find ways to make their corks stand out!

Now, I am usually not an overly big fan of white wines from the Southern hemisphere. They tend to be too alcoholic for my taste (a result of the high amounts of sunshine they get: more sunshine, more sugar in the grape. And since sugar is turned into alcohol by the yeast, if you have lots of sugar and want to produce a dry wine, you often end up with high alcohol content).

This one was not bad, though. It was somewhat unimpressive, but that is what I often find pinot grigios to be anyway. It was quite refreshing, and the citrus notes went very well with the sweetness of the squash risotto. I think the penguin can be good company with sweeter foods. The still-attached price tag reads $9.99, which I would consider too much for this wine.

In better news, we received a box of six wines from my good friend Stefan Erbes (you can see him here) of Karl Erbes winery in Uerzig. Stefan and I became quick friends over a winetasting at his estate, and when a German friend offered to bring wine back for us from a recent trip, Stefan sent him a box of 2011s for us to try. I am really excited about this!! I am even more excited to be visiting his estate in June, when Nina and I will be in Germany.

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May 12 2012
2 Comments
2010, Michigan, USA

First homemade sangria and a pleasant Michigan surprise

Last night, we threw one of our parties at our place: We provide the venue and some initial drinks, you bring the booze…they’re always tons of fun.

To celebrate the beginning of summer (it is dark, and grey, and weird outside as I write this, but it was gorgeous yesterday), we decided to make sangria. Now, I have never made sangria in my life, but whatever, it cannot be too hard, I thought. So I scoured the web, and found tons of recipes, like this one or that one, usually boasting that they are the best recipe ever. A surprising number were for white sangria. I had never even heard of that before. I was also disturbed by the frequent ingredient of club soda or ginger ale…just did not sound right to me. Eventually, I just decided to give it my own try, pure and simple:

– 5 liters of Franzia boxed shiraz (hey, it is the world’s most popular wine after all…according to their website) – I picked a shiraz because it tends to be more spicy than the other varieties they have and I thought spice notes like cinnamon and cardamom etc. would go well with the fruit that was going in.

– 2 oranges, 1 lemon, 1 apple (all organic, because they will soak with their skins in the wine) cut in wheels

– 2 oranges squeezed into the wine

– 2 cups of sugar dissolved in 1 1/2 cup of warm water (to create a syrup that blends easier with the wine than the granulated sugar)

Mix it all, chill it for as long as you can (ours chilled for about 10 hours, overnight is even better) and that is that. No club soda, no ginger ale. We added some sparkling water to make it bubbly later, but I don’t think it is necessary. I thought it worked pretty nicely.

Friends of ours brought a Michigan late harvest riesling, a 2010 Chateau Grand Traverse Late Harvest Riesling. I had read about Chateau Grand Traverse as being one of the better wineries in Michigan, located on the eastern coast of Lake Michigan, in the west of the state. Those who know me can imagine my excitement. We opened it later in the evening, and I liked it. The nose was not very impressive, but I am not sure whether the problem was my sangria drinking before I smelled this one or whether it was actually rather neutral. But the taste was quite good. It reminded me of what vineyards smell like around harvest time, moist and succulent air, very grapy fruit notes, and just a nice, comforting and decent wine. Apparently it is available at one of the Kroger’s in Ann Arbor (definitely not at ours…I checked this morning). I need to go hunting…

Have you tried this wine? What do you think? Do you have sangria recipes that I should know of?

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May 10 2012
5 Comments
2007, Germany, Mosel

2007 Kurt Hain Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling Spätlese #13

Last Friday, we were invited for a BBQ in the park. It was a gorgeous day, we were playing soccer with our friends’ kids, awesome meat on the grill. Nina and I have been on a slow mission to get our friend who hosted this hooked to German rieslings…so, naturally we brought a bottle to share.

The winery Kurt Hain has been one of my favorite wineries in the Mosel village of Piesport, home to the very renown vineyard “Goldtroepfchen” (literally: “droplets of gold”). Gernot Hain, the winemaker (follow the link for a photo and his philosophy), has been making high quality wines for quite a bit now, and they rarely fail to impress me. They have a balance and sophistication about them, that just draws you in. There is someone who knows exactly what he is doing…and he is doing it remarkably well. Gernot also plays in the Weinelf, Germany’s “national” soccer team composed of winemakers (yes, they exist!).

Now, the wine we brought was the 2007 Piesporter Goldtroepfchen Spaetlese #13. It was in our stash that we brought over from Germany when we moved to Ann Arbor. We felt it was the right time and moment to try it now. In following posts, I will give you more background on how to read a German winelabel etc., suffice it to know for now that this is a riesling with rather high residual sugar made from quality grapes.

Note how beautiful the bottle is. Gernot’s wines tend to be bottled in longer-neck bottles which make them look way more fancy and elegant.

The wine itself had aged beautifully. A lot of people are not aware of the fact that you can age rieslings for a quite a while, the low yielding top of the spectrum for many many decades, but spaetlesen like this can hold on for 20 to 30 years no problem…when the wines are younger, their fruity smells and tastes tend to dominate, while in later years, the sugar and acidity balance each other out more.

The wine had retained its beautiful, lighter than straw color.  When we tried it, it still tasted refreshingly fruity, but you could tell that it was already moving on to the next stage of its existence, with less pronounced fruit and a tad more alcoholic taste. The acidity was doing a jumpy tap dance over the sweetness on my tongue. It was hilarious. And what I loved most, this fun taste lingered and lingered and lingered…too bad it was our last bottle.

Unfortunately, Kurt Hain does not export to the US. His listed importer went bust a while back. For European readers: You can contact the winery for a price list here. I am sure they can ship within Europe without a problem.

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