J&B named IWC Specialist German Wine Merchant of the Year.

The German section of our wine list has long been an area very close to our Chairman's heart. Over the past 30 years his love of German Riesling has been transformed into our extensive listings from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, The Nahe, Rheingau, Rheinhessen and Franken.

So it was a delight to receive the award for the 2010 Specialist Wine Merchant of the Year. You could say it was just another riesling to be happy...

Helmut Donnhoff: Dry whites and Soil Diversity

Legendary Nahe winemaker Helmut Donnhoff took a few minutes to discuss with us the impace of the warming weather on acidities in his dry wines, and the relative effects of his slate and volcanic soils.

Weekending: Riesling Greats....

Not a piece on tourism, though we are rather taken by the area. Merely a couple of photos of some of Germany's most famous vineyards to demonstrate just how steep, imposing and impressive these steep sites are.

The famous Brauneberger Juffer vineyards comletely dominates the scene in the town of Brauneberg, seen here from Oliver Haag's window.

Looking down the river from the Prum's, with Wehlener Sonnenuhr at left and off in the distance the down of Graach and the Domprobst and Himmelreich vineyards.

Piesporter's Goldtropchen in the distance, a steep, suntrap of a vineyard.

Germany: Day 4

We wake up in Franken, it's day four and we have appointments at both Horst Sauer and Rudolph Furst. The first is regarded as one of the finest white producers in Germany, while Furst is regarded as one of the finest Red producers. We arrive at Escherndorf's "Lump" vineyard, a majestic horseshoe sweep of vineyard, on time. Sandra and Horst meet us. After a brief tour of their newly modernised winery we are once again shown the depth of quality in 2009; from the driest of Rieslings to a 300g/l Sylvaner Eiswein. Their wines are the purest and most complex expressions of riesling from the limestone soil.

Appointment number two, Furst. The first time we've been to the estate and our focus is on their much lauded Pinot Noirs. The red sandstone slopes of the Main have had Pinot planted here since the 1600s and today the Furst esate comprises 10ha of Pinot Vines in two separate vineyards; Centgrafenburg and Klingenburger. These are very pure wines with high levels of elegance and clarity, with a quiet intensity to the morello cherry fruit and delicate haunting length.

Germany: Day 3

Springtime in the Nahe and it's looking extremely pretty as we snake our way down to Oberhausen to meet Helmut Donnhoff, a man full of the joys...and quite rightly so with a vintage like 2009 in his cellar. We tasted a really exciting trio of Grosses Gewachs (Grand Cru) that we will be offering come the first of September. The more we taste these intense dry wines from the region the more excited we get. The stringent vineyard grape selection and warmer recent vintages are giving really ripe, fruit acidities to balance the steely Riesling focus.

At Emrich-Schonleber we tasted more superb 2009 Grosse Gewachs, followed by examples from 1999 and 2002 (at the time labelled Auslese Trocken). It was very revealing. These are quite evidently serious wines that can age wonderfully, gaining in complexity while losing none of their crisp, Riesling precision. Take note these are wines to watch.


Not to be eclipsed were the sweet wines. At both aforementioned estates we saw collections that resoundingly prove what an impressive a vintage 2009 is across the board. As Frank at Emrich-Schonleber commented, "there is less sharpness of minerality than 2008, they are bigger in body and very well balanced. They are perhaps closer to 2007, but with more finesse".



Our last stop of the day was with Klaus-Peter Keller who put the quality of 2009 down to a very cold second half of October. This "refrigerator temperature". period allowed the grapes to develop in complexity without increasing in must weight or decreasing in acidity. It's a truly great year here at Keller and undoubtedly one of the collections of the vintage.

Germany 2009: Day 2

The day's tasting began at Willi Schaefer where we were met by the charming Christophe Schaefer.

In tasting our way through a beautiful set of wines from the Himmelreich and Domprobst vineyards in the village of Graach we discovered great "ripeness and structure but also fantastic ripe acidity". We came away stuck by their finesse, elegance and purity. An estate doing great things.

On route to Maximin Grunhaus we stopped at Reinhold Haart to taste his wonderful Piesport Goldtropfchens. A vineyard reknowned for producing some of the richest and most opulent wines in the Mosel, the 2009s are exotic but not without refinement, their richness and almost Rheingau-esk power coming from the soft slate soils and sunbaked aspect of the site.

Lunch beckoned but not before we climbed out of the Mosel valley and over to the Ruwer for all 20 wines in Carl von Schubert's stable. Daunted we began, but it wasn't long before we were totally immersed in a thoroughly impressive set of wines. The "dry" Abtsberg Superior (allowed to ferment to its natural conclusion) was powerful, balanced and intense. The top quality sweeter wines that followed were punctuated by the particular highs of the Abtsberg Kabinett, a Herrenerg Auslese of profound minerality and a final pair of incredible, showstopping Eisweins.

The post lunch session was filled by Karthauserhof, a short drive across the village. Christophe Tyrell was on hand, describing the wines as "a little bit of 2007, a little bit of 2005 and a little bit of 2003, maybe 40%, 40% and 20%". We took this to mean as a seriously balanced vintage. Which is exactly what we tasted.

Last but by no means least was our trip to Zilliken, in Saarburg. The great Rausch vineyard showing Wonderful ripeness and good true steely character; a superb trio of Kabinet, Spatlese and Ausleses.

Tomorrow the Nahe...