Riesling is hot. Another couple of tastings last week included a wonderful perspective of Germany’s Saar vineyard Ockfener Bockstein with third generation vintner Nik Weis who runs the St. Urbans-Hof estate. His grandfather in 1947 identified the successful Riesling clone 21B (now called the Weis clone) which later found its way into Canada at Vineland Estates in Ontario and planted in 1978 at BC’s Pinot Reach (now Tantalus old vines). Nik repeats that the 3 most important factors in a great Riesling are: “balance, balance and balance!”. He believes “residual sugar should be present in a way that doesn’t really show but brings out the fruit and balances the acidity.” He uses an analogy of the right amount of salt in a perfectly seasoned food course or the lemon juice on a fish dish. In the seventies and eighties excessive sugar was sometimes there to cover other faults in the wines. One of the most challenging decisions of winemaking is knowing when to naturally stop the fermentation at the best alcohol and sugar levels.

The Okfener Bockstein estate is a special place on very steep southwest facing hard gravelly gray slate soil where they bought more land in 1989 with now a total of 6 hectares (15 acres). Wines have a distinctive smoky minerality with the cool winds contributing more flower aromatics and preserving flavours in the grapes. Nik calls it “a smoky floral nose like Silex fume sauvignon in the Loire with additional elements of thyme, elderflowers, violets, roses, lavender, lime, lemon, apple and peach”. Matched with a special Four Seasons Hotel dinner we sampled over a dozen examples from fresh young 2012 back to complex older 1990. 2001 Kabinett was a “true one” while many Kabinett these days are really lighter Spatlese. Really enjoyed the complexity of 2002 Spatlese at only 7.5 alcohol which had more acidity than 2007 (riper 8.5 alcohol) yet seemed younger fresher and more vibrant even though 5 years older. 1990 Auslese another winner with high acidity year allowing the wine to remain so fresh. 1999 stylish but more botrytis showing nuts with dried fruits. 2003 riper more residual sugar higher alcohol 9 and seems softer to me. Nik said he just opened the 1952 which was fresh. He affirmatively states their 2002 & 2003 Spatlese or Auslese can age 40 years easily.

As we discussed last week do you prefer Riesling dry or sweet? Now a follow up question asking if you prefer your Riesling young or older – or at any delicious age!

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By Joseph Temple

While we all wait until 2015 to see how the final season of AMC’s Mad Men ends, let’s have a look at some food and drink advertisements that the real Don Drapers of the time cooked up for TV viewers of the 1960s and early 1970s – an era where catchy jingles reigned supreme.  Looking back, it’s hard to imagine a commercial today lasting more than thirty seconds and yet, some of these spots approach the one-minute mark.   And in today’s fast-paced world, seeing dad at the breakfast table reading (gasp) … a newspaper and not an iPhone only adds to the nostalgic feel of these ads.  So lets take a trek down memory lane with these classics.

1.  Wesson Vegetable Oil … cooks as light as it looks

This commercial is so sugary, you’ll get a cavity just watching it.  If this mother and son duo performs a jingle every time they use vegetable oil, imagine what happens when they break out their favorite bottle of ketchup.

2.  Fanta Orange  … it’s so fun when you’re thirsty

Without question, Coca Cola was king when it came to catchy jingles.  Who can forget “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” or “Things go better with Coke?”  And it looks like Fanta Orange, their sister beverage benefited from the same group of talented writers with this bubblegum tune similar to The Archies “Sugar, Sugar” and Tommy Roe’s “Dizzy.”  Watching a group of hipsters paint their Love Bug in the hot sun, aren’t you glad that they were able to quench their thirst with some refreshing orange soda?

3. Continental Airlines … we’ll really move our tail for you!

With airlines cutting costs and passengers crammed in tighter than a sardine can, you’re lucky these days if you can get one free soda in a small plastic cup.  So imagine coach passengers getting a slice of juicy roast beef with a glass of sparkling wine as you take off to your destination!

4. Instant Quaker Oatmeal gets a celebrity endorsement.

If you’re Quaker Oats and want to reach every housewife in Middle America during the 1960s, who better than Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York to help sell your oatmeal?  The two stars of the 60s hit show Bewitched prove that making instant oatmeal is as easy as twitching your nose.

5.  Canada Dry Ginger Ale … one gulp if for thirst, the other gulps are for kicks!

If you’re ever shooting pool, hosting a bonfire or partying on a yacht with some scantily clad females, take it to the next step by offering that special lady some champagne – the champagne of ginger ales that is!

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By The original uploader was Simon-sake at Dutch Wikipedia (Transferred from nl.wikipedia to Commons.) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Question: Why Does Riesling Grow So Well In Germany?

Answer: This week’s posting on the topic “Riesling: Dry or Sweet?” generated some discussion including this question.  Tough to put your finger exactly on one specific answer. However several important factors come into play that make riesling so successful there.

First is the unique microclimate. Thirteen different wine growing regions so far north around the 50^th parallel latitude is crucial. However global warming is having some influence on the weather there. Seems you no longer can be absolutely guaranteed that riesling grown in the Saar will be quite acidic.

But it is not all about only climate but a unique terroir including appropriate soils for such a suitable grape variety like riesling! The regions benefit from the nearby rivers and their distinct soils to absorb heat during the day and retain it during the night. A variety of soils from quartz, sandy loam, clay, silt, graphite, volcanic and limestone contribute different styles. A really big reason for the world-wide admiration of  German riesling is the special Devonian blue gray slate found especially in the Mosel, Saar & Ruwer contributing to their wonderful fruit acidity as well as the structured wines from Rheingau especially around Assmannshausen, Lorch & Rudesheim. There are amazing slopes going straight up from the river bends but also terraces, and rolling hills as well. Quite diverse to say the least!

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By No machine-readable author provided. T.o.m.~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

We all know that the riesling grape variety challenges strongly as possibly the very best one grown for wine. It shows this amazing versatility at all levels of sweetness to produce a well structured and delicious wine. The old German wine laws of 1971 emphasized quality not based on yields or other important factors but on the must weight of the grapes. This gave us a somewhat misleading notion that the riper and sweeter the grapes the better the quality of the wine. However these days most German wines are being fermented to dryness (trocken) or fairly dry (halbtrocken) even if the grapes qualify up to auslese in their quality.  No longer just the New World supplying us with dry Riesling.

Thought provoking ideas were brought into clearer focus for me by 3 tastings I attended last week. The first was called Generation Riesling (www.Generation-Riesling.de) hosted by Ted Kalaboukis Director Canada for Wines of Germany with Nadine Poss, their German Wine Queen for 2013-14. They showed 10 German wines from the new generation to go with a four course lunch catered by two of our finest food trucks spotlighting Indian by Vij’s Railway Express (pakoras, tamarind, butter chicken with fenugreek curry, cumin, mango, naan, spicy lamb) and Far East by Roaming Dragon (dumplings, ginger, taco trio with Malaysia, Mexico, and Korean flavours). The pairings worked well showing wonderful balance and minerals in both the dry and sweet (spatlese) wines to stand up to the assertive dishes. Zum Wohl!

The other two events were blind tastings including one with 19 bagged wines that all turned out to be Riesling – 1 each from Austria, France, California, 2 Washington State, 8 BC, and 4 Germany. This was quite a difficult tasting because some wines were austerely dry while others were rather sweet. Moreover the alcohol levels ranged from a low of 7.5 in an elegant Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese 2011 from Dr. F. Weins-Prum in the Mosel served 4th in the order to a high of 13.9 in a dry BC wine served late. Another German wine 2012 Dr. Von Basserman-Jordan Riesling Trocken was 12 degrees and quite dry.  This tasting really brought home to me the profound difference in style of all the riesling currently out there on the market.

Be sure you know what you are buying.  It could be a dry riesling or a sweeter one! Please vote on your preferred style.

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By Joseph Temple

In 2005, China drastically lowered its tariffs on imported wines from 64% to 14%.  Since then, scores of buyers have made up for lost time by indulging themselves in the fine art of wine tasting — a practice that Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution outlawed for being decadent and bourgeois.  Now seldom does a week go by without a news story discussing the impact China is having on wine exports.  Purchasing 1.86 billion bottles in 2013 (a 136% increase in only five years), a whole new generation of oenophiles are springing up from Shanghai to the Himalayas as winemakers around the world eagerly look to cash in.

But what about China’s domestic production? Since almost 95% of the wine consumed in the People’s Republic comes from locally grown grapes, perhaps its time to have a closer look at this potential vino-superpower.

Having a largely superstitious population, it’s no surprise that red wine dominates the marketplace.  That’s because the color red is considered lucky in Chinese culture, while the color white is synonymous with death.  Unfortunately, since the majority of its wine consists of local grapes blended with cheap bulk wine imports, even their finest Cabernet is no match against France or California in terms of quality.  That’s why a sort-of Sino-Franco alliance has been established in recent years.

Beginning in 1978 when China first opened its doors to the West, an influx of foreign wine producers have partnered with government-run businesses to help improve the quality of its vineyards.  Some of these joint ventures have been with notable vintners such as Rémy Martin, Pernod-Ricard and more recently in 2009 when Domaines Barons de Rothschild (DBR) Lafite partnered with China’s biggest state-owned investment company to produce wine geared towards the domestic market.

Setting up shop in the city of Penglai, DBR, like most winegrowers chose the Shandong Province as their hub, which along with the Province of Shanxi benefits from a maritime climate.  Located northwest of Shanghai and south of Beijing, these two provinces share the same latitude as California and would be almost Mediterranean in climate if it weren’t for the raging monsoons.  Of the approximately 500 wineries in China, the majority are located in these two provinces, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t others that are emerging as well, such as the Mount Helan region and Xinjiang Province on China’s western border.

As of today, Chinese wine has still failed to reach a global audience. But working alongside established vintners to increase quality, the People’s Republic might just be a sleeping giant ready to dominate the global marketplace.   Just remember that fifty years ago, wines from Australia and California were held in similar contempt.

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