100th anniversary of the Scheurebe

Let’s go back, way back, back in 1916. We are looking over the shoulder of Dr. Georg Scheu, who is breeding vines at the regional office of winegrowers in Alzey, in the German wine region Palatinate. He is working as a viticulturalist, cultivating seedlings of vitis vinifera, to create new noble grapes. Indeed he is already known for the creation of many crossbred grape varieties. Somewhen in 1916 Georg planted the seedling number 88 of a hybrid and this one should become his heritage.

A Bocksbeutel of Scheurebe from Franconia

This grape gathered the best of both of its parents, the Riesling and the Bukettraube. Wines made of this grape have a distinctive aroma (German: Bukett) of one of the parents and the racy acidity of the other one. The new grape variety is named for his discoverer Scheurebe (“rebe” means in German “vine”).

Today, one hundred years later, the Scheurebe is under the Top 10 of the white grape varieties in Germany. It also plays a role in Austria where it still is called Sämling 88 (Seedling 88), because of the 88^th seedling Georg Scheu planted back then.

Scheurebe is the German answer to the Sauvignon Blanc. Usually highly aromatic, dominated by rich blackcurrant aromas supplemented with grapefruit, gooseberry and elderflower. Well-made wines of the Scheurebe are full-bodied. Often they are produced semidry, so they have some residual sugar, which compliments quite well the flavors.

The Scheurebe, I had in my glass, was from the German wine region Franconia, you could recognize this by the shape of the bottle, called Bocksbeutel. This one is from a town called Sommerach on the Isle of Wine, a lovely piece of land completely surrounded by the River Main.

Let’s praise Georg Scheu for this great breeding 100 years ago!

Cheerio!

Ten out of forty thousand - a nice selection of a great collection

How many bottles of wine do you store in you cellar? Ten, twenty or even a hundred? What about 40.000!? Yes, forty thousand. That’s the number of bottles that an elderly married couple in Würzburg, Franconia, collected over the last 40 years. And this are just the bottles which were stored away. Uncounted the wines that were drunk by Wolfgang and Luise Koegel, since they were infected with the wine-virus back in the 1970s. They made it their hobby to drive through the German wine regions and visit wineries almost each weekend.

Ten out of forty thousand

They amassed this great collection and till this day they open a bottle each day. Now in their 90^th the lease of their cellar was resigned and they had to decide what to do with all those wines. Be it fate or coincidence, they converged with Martin Steinmann, the owner of the wine estate Schloss Sommerhausen, who instantly was stunned by this compilation of German wines of the last 40 years.

But what to do with those wines? Taken by inquisitiveness about this hoard, Martin agreed to care about this fanciful assortment. The challenge was not only the mere number of the bottles but also that there were almost no duplicates, which made it barely impossible to commercialize this selection. By another coincidence the Vinum wine magazine got attention of this. This and the fact that the Koegls had no commercial interest with their wine heritage saw to it, that they bore the idea to salvage this for charity purposes.

Tasting for charity

“Transferring all the bottles to one of the cellars of the Weingut Schloss Sommerhausen was a challenging task, but the bigger exercise was - and still is - to screen and classify the bottles”, Martin comments this. The idea was to pack six bottles each into a cardboard box and merchandise them as a surprise package. The net profit of this benefits the charitable organization Wine Saves Life e.V. supporting child welfare in developing countries.

Besides this, Martin hosts a surprise wine tasting of ripe wines each month. Lucky me, I could attend one of this tastings. We had a line-up of ten white wines of vintages between 1976 and 1993, dominated by the German Riesling grape, but also one of Muskateller, of a Traminer and of a Scheurebe. One surprise was, that all of the wines were still drinkable, but the bigger surprise was how excellent some developed and matured. Especially Riesling with some residual sugar matures pretty well. The typical fruity flavors are complemented by balmy notes like honey, resin or wax.

You need not to collect 40.000 bottles but you could consider to store away some of your favorite wines for later. Much later! Ah, and if you don’t want to wait until then, I know from good authority, that there are still some surprise packages left. You could try to get one via the Vinum magazine (www.vinum.de/weinsammlung). See also www.winesaveslifes.de and www.sommerhausen.com for more information.

1993 Ortenberger Schloßberg
Muskateller Spätlese

1989 Wachenheimer Fuchsmantel
Riesling Spätlese

1984 Schloßböckelheimer Kupfergrube
Riesling

1983 Forster Ungeheuer
Riesling Spätlese trocken

1983 Niersteiner Petersberg
Scheurebe Spätlese

1983 Dürkheimer Michelsberg
Riesling Auslese

1976 Johannisberger Hölle
Riesling Auslese

Catfish and Riesling

Catfish with Franconian Riesling

In Franconia there are relatively few natural lakes. To supply the demand for domestic fish there evolved lots of small fish farms during the last centuries. Many of them grow fish in ponds which are fished dry each year during fall season.  So this is the season to have the best domestic fish like carp, trout or catfish.

You could have catfish in all different sizes and there are some restaurants where you could order a fish in advance for a certain number of ‘eaters’. There were three of us with this boiled catfish here. Together with potatoes and a traditional horseradish sauce this was delicious.

We opted for a Riesling from Franconia together with the fish. Riesling is one of the most versatile white wines, which goes well along with many dishes. Pretty well of course with fishes.

Un pique-nique en Alsacea

A pique-nique with wine

It is the time to recall this grandiose summer we had here in Europe this year. A lot of sunshine and a tropical heat gave us great opportunities to stay outside.
I had a great time travelling through the Alsace in France and enjoyed the local specialities there. There are delicious things like pasty, salami and all kind of cheese, ah, and of course the baguette.

What else? Well, you know me good enough by now to guess what we had with the food: Of course, an outstanding wine of the region.

The Alsace is one of the French wine regions but given by its history and geography, next to Germany, it is more influenced by the German viticulture.
Here most wines are made of a single grape variety which is named on the bottle whereas in the other parts of France the wines usually are blended and the “appellacion d'origine” (designation of origin) is the predominant characterization.

Another analogy to Germany are the grape varietals which are cultivated here. Riesling is the most common one, alongside with Gewürztraminer, Pinot Blanc or the Sylvaner.

We had a Riesling together with our specialities at the picnic in the green near the lovely city of Colmar. Riesling is a great all-rounder to pair with a lot of different kind of food and flavours.

À votre santé!

Old vine from the old winery

Riesling with chicken

Probably you wonder that ze German guy almost never talks about THE German grape, the Riesling. Well here we are!

For sure, Riesling is the best known German grape variety. It is well aromatic, usually of ripe peaches and flowers and it has a tangy acidity caused by the continental climate here in Germany. The wines of the Riesling are real all-rounders, to pair with a lot of dishes. And the wine is very long lasting, indeed it evolves quite well the longer you preserve it in the bottle (given that you store it dark and cool).

This one here in my glass is called “Alte Reben” which means “old vine”. But this refers to the age of the vines rather than to the age of the wine. It is said that the older the vines the better the quality of the wine. Old vines have a very huge rootstock to bring up the best of the soil and this makes up the quality of a wine.

Probably you can decipher the year date on the emblem of the winery, the Staatliche Hofkeller located in Würzburg, the heart of Franconia. The number is 1128 and yes, this is the year when the winery was founded. By this the Hofkeller is one of the oldest wineries in the world.

Today we paired our Riesling with a roast chicken, prepared with a marinade of honey, oil, paprika and herbs. Together with a fresh salad really delicious.