A Teutonic Tippling: The Wines of Germany and Austria More than Just Sweet Riesling

 Wine Produced Mainly in the West  Rhine and Tributaries  60% of Production in Rhineland – Palitinate (Rheinland – Pfalz)  247,100 acres of Vineyards  About 10% of France, Italy or Spain  18 th Most in the World (Wine Institute – 2010)  Approximately 1.2 Billion Bottles per Year

 Myth: Germany Only makes Sweet Wines  Fact: This tasting will feature exactly zero sweet wines  Myth: Most German Wines are Low Quality  Liebfraumilch (Silvaner)  Blue Nun  Fact: German White Wines are Widely Considered to be Some of the World’s Most Elegant and Aromatically Pure  Myth: German Red Wines are Lousy  Fact: German Red Wines are Becoming Much Better, and Quickly – But They are Difficult to Find in the US

 Some of the Most Northern Wine Regions in the World  Wines Need to Be Frost- Resistant and/or Early Harvesting/Ripening  Wines are All Produced Around Rivers – the Mountains Provide Shelter  The Rivers Have Extreme Micro-Climate Impacts  Steep Cliffs are Mainly Slate (Slate Absorbs the Sun’s Heat, and Retains it Through the Colder Nights)  Rolling Hills are Mainly Clay and Lime  The Best Wineries are on Steep Cliffs (Difficult to Harvest)

 Riesling – 21.9% (of acreage) and Increasing  Müller-Thurgau – 13.4% Decreasing  Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) – 11.5% Constant  Dornfelder – 7.9% Decreasing  Silvaner – 5.1% Decreasing  Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris) – 4.4% Increasing  Blauer-Portugieser – 4.3% Decreasing  Weißburgunder (Pinot Blanc) – 3.6% Increasing

 Ullrich Langguth Riesling Sekt – Trocken, Non-Vintage  Trocken = Dry  13% ABV  100% Riesling Grape  Langguth Family Founded the Wine Business in 1789  Ulrich Langguth Winery Founded in 1921  Patrick and Mark Langguth Currently Run the Winery

 Property is 4.5 Acres – 90% Riesling  Grapes Also Come From Other Vineyards  Traben  Enkirch  Piesport  Vineyards All on Steep Slopes (85% Facing South or SSW)  Production Limited to 60 Hectoliters per Hectare (~650 Gallons per Acre)

 Wine Produced Mainly in the East  Niederösterreich (Lower Austria) ~60% of Total Wine Production in Austria (Regions 1 – 8)  Burgenland ~30% of Total Wine Production in Austria (Regions 9 – 12)  Others – Vienna (13); Styria (14 – 16)  108,000 acres of Vineyards  30 th Most in the World (Wine Institute – 2010)

 Danube Area  Large Temperature Differentials Between Day and Night  Long Vegetation Cycle Allows Harvest Into November  Weinviertel  Home to the Peppery Grüner Veltliner  Numerous Micro-Climates and Geologic Differences  Pannonian Area  Warmer Climate than Danube or Weinviertel  Contributes to Rounder, Fuller- Bodied Wines  Great for Blaufränkisch  Stiermark  Also Warm – Hillier Countryside  Wines are Precise, Brilliant and Robust

 Grüner Veltliner – 36.0% (of acreage)  Other White (<2%) – 11.1%  Zweigelt– 9.0%  Welschriesling – 8.9%  Other Red (<2%) – 8.9%  Müller-Thurgau – 6.8%  Pinot blanc + Chardonnay – 6.1%  Blaufränkisch – 5.5%  Blauer Portugieser – 4.9%  Riesling – 3.4%  Neuburger – 2.3%

 Lenz Moser Grüner Veltliner, Niederösterreich – Trocken, 2013  11.5% ABV  100% Grüner Veltliner  Niederösterreich (Lower Austria – In the North)  Winery at Rohrendorf bei Krems  Yellow-Green Color  Fresh and Spicy Bouquet  Fruity Body, Lively Fresh Finish

 Food-Friendly Wine  Many Different Styles  Drunk Young  Sparkling  Longer Aging  Steep, Slate Cliffs Produce Pure, Mineral Grüner Intended for Aging  In the Plains, Citrus and Peach Flavors with Bouquet of Pepper or Tobacco

 Cooperates Exclusively with Winegrowers and Wine-Making Collectives from Lower Austria and Burgenland  First Mentioned in an Official Document as Early as 1040  Laurenz (Lenz) Moser III Founded the Family Vine Nursery in 1929  Developed the Lenz Moser High Training System Used in 90% of Austria’s Vines

 Taffelwein and Landwein  3.6% of total production  exported to US  Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete (QbA)  Prädikatswein  Kabinett  Spätlese  Auslese  Beerneauslese  Eiswein  Trockenbeerenauslese

German Wine Classification Table ClassificationEnglish Translation Min Alc of Wines Min. Pot. Alc of Must Sweetness of wine Botrytis Character Qualitatswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete (QbA) quality wine from a specific region (1 of 13 regions) 7 % 7-10 % Can add sugar us. semi- sweet, crisp acid Prädikatswein wine with special attributes (1 of 39 subregions) (Approved varieties) Kabinettreserve7 % % us. semi- sweet Spätleselate harvest7 %11-13 % us. semi- sweet Auslese select late harvest clusters 7 %12-14 %dry to sweetmaybe Beernernauslese select late harvest berries 5.5 %(15-18) % sweet dessert wine often Eisweinice wine5.5 %(15-18) % sweet dessert wine often Trockenbeerenauslese select late harvest dried berries 5.5 %(20-21) % sweet dessert wine often

Max. sugar level allowed DesignationEnglish translation Low acid wines Medium acid wines High acid wines Trockendry 4 g/L (0.4%) acid level in g/L g/L (0.9%) Halbtrockenhalf-dry 12 g/L (1.2%) acid level in g/L g/L (1.8%) Feinherboff-dry Unregulated, slightly sweeter than halbtrocken Lieblich, Mild, Restsüß semi-sweetUsually not marked Süß, EdelsüßsweetUsually not marked How Sweet is it?

 Clean Slate Riesling, Mosel 2013  Grapes Selected from Upper, Middle, and Lower Mosel  10.5% ABV  100% Riesling  Total Acid 7.4 g/L  pH 2.5  Residual Sugar 2.2%  Stainless Steel 4 Months Before Bottling  Pale Gold  Clean Nose – Apples and White Peaches  Fruity with Vibrant Acidity – Intense Slate Minerality

 Moselland eG – Cooperative Formed in 1969 from Regional Cooperatives  6 districts, 19 collective parcels, 524 individual parcels  8,787 ha (21,700 acres) vineyard area (2011)  42.2% of growing area is “step Slope“ with more than 30% grading.  Riesling grows on 60% of total area

Ice Wine Harvest

Arsenic

 Naturally Occurring Element In the Soil  Groundwater  Equipment  Mostly Inexpensive Wines – Charles Shaw was Targeted by CBS  Trader Joe’s Issued A Statement  A Note to Customers about Arsenic in Wine, March 20, 2015  wine wine  George Balling (the Dinner Party) Wrote an Article that Appeared in the Coeur d’Alene Press on 4/1/15  Described the Processes by Which Arsenic Could End Up in Wine  Inexpensive Wines – You Get What You Pay For – Result of Trying to Save Money in:  Crops (Central California Valley)  Harvesting Processes – Machines Grab Unexpected Flora, Soil, Fauna  Not a Lot of Money put Into Quality Wine-Making

 Only Toxic in it’s Inorganic Form – Standards Measure Total Arsenic (Both Organic and Inorganic)  Health Effects Include Skin Disease; Skin, Lung, Bladder, Kidney Cancer; Hypertension; Diabetes  Lifestyle Factors – Smoking, Genetics, Diet, Concurrent Exposure to Other Substances Have an Impact  Standards are 10 Parts Per Billion (PPB) or 10 micrograms/Liter (µg/L) for Drinking Water  Before 2001, it was 50 µg/L for Drinking Water  In Canada, for Wine, it is currently 100 µg/L  The International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) in Paris – Standard for Wine is 200 µg/L  The Highest Arsenic Level in the CBS Report was 50 µg/L  I Can Calculate What Happens When I Drink Wine with this Level of Arsenic

 If I Drink 4.5 Liters of Wine Per Day with 50 µg/L Arsenic….  And These Pictures Represent ~7.5 Months of Wine…It’s a LOT  And if I do this for a Lifetime – My Cancer Risk Does Increase  Using the EPA Calculated Oral Dose Standards, & If I Do the Math Correctly, My Increased Chance of Cancer Risk After a Lifetime is ~ 1 in 250  This is Equivalent to 0.4% Chance of Contracting Cancer in My Lifetime  Another way to View This – I Have a 99.6% Chance of NOT Contracting Cancer from Drinking This Much Wine with 50 PPB Arsenic Over a Lifetime  And, I’ll probably Die from Cirrhosis of the Liver Way, Way Before I get Cancer

Riesling Terpenoid Alcohols Mostly from skins, and juice Easily oxidized, can change with aqge Some bound with glucose- a reservoir Hotrienol- Grapefruit Linalool, Nerol, Geraniol- Rose, Geranium Citronellol- Citronella Alpha-terpineol- Lily of the Valley

TDN  Formed from plant pigments carotene and lutein  Riesling has right proportions to produce TDN with age  More common from warm weather grapes, sun exposure, high acid  Cork absorbs TDN, so screwcaps favor TDN  Considered a flaw in young Australian Riesling  20 ppb threshold, up to 200 ppb in Riesling

 Rudi Weist, Pfeffingen Ungstein Gewürztraminer - Trocken, Pfalz 2013  13% ABV  100% Gewürztraminer  Hand-Selected Grapes  Acidity 5.2 g/L  Residual Sugar 7.2 g/L

 High Natural Sugar  Usually Results in an Off- Dry Wine  Pink to Red Skins Makes it a “White” Wine Grape  Only the 18 th Most Common Grape Varietal Grown in Germany  Typically a Dryer Style than Across the Rhine (Alsace)  Spicy, Peppery Nose – with Rose Floral Notes  Extremely Well-Balanced Wine, Rich Mouth-feel, Lingering Finish

 Located in the Village of Ungstein – Essentially a Neighborhood in Bad Dürkheim – 10 Miles West of Mannheim  Family-Owned Winery  8,000 Cases per Year Total Production  Valentin Schnell Bought the Estate in 1931  Karl and Helen Fuhrmann (Helen is Valentin’s Grand- daughter) Took Over in  Karl and Helen’s Daughter, Doris Eymael, Has Run the Winery Since 1992

The Pfeffingen Estate

 Lenz Moser, Zweigelt, Niederösterreich – Trocken 2013  12.5% ABV  100% Zweigelt  Ruby Red Wine – Aroma of Cherries  Medium to Full Bodied – Spicy Notes, Fruity Finish

 Most Widely-Grown Red Varietal in Austria  Developed in 1922 by Fritz Zweigelt  Cross Between St. Laurent and Blaufränkisch  Grows in All Austrian Wine Regions – Varies Greatly in Character  Young-Drinking non- Wood-Matured  Strong, Well-Structured Wood Aged  And Everything In Between

 Uwe Schiefer, Blaufränkisch, Burgenland, 2012  13.0% ABV  100% Blaufränkisch  Ruby to Garnet in Color  Nose of Sour Cherries  Medium to Full Bodied – Well Structured with Wood and Mineral Notes, with a Lingering Finish

 In the US, Known as Lemberger  Early-Budding, Late- Ripening Varietal  Susceptible to Early Frost  So, Typically Grown in Southern Austria  2 nd Most Widely- Grown Red Wine in Austria

 Located in Welgersdorf Südburgenland  Uwe Schiefer – Owner Since 1994  14 Hectares (~34.5 acres)  About 26,000 Bottles Annually  Most Acreage Devoted to Red Wine, Mostly Blaufränkisch  “Iron-rich Clay-silt Terroir on Ancient Terraces Allows the Production of Red Wines that are Full of Character and Seem Almost Cool”

 You can order any of these wines (except the Sekt) at Pilgrim’s.  Within the next week, Sara Ray will provide you a 10% discount – talk to her when she is in – usually after about 11:00 AM Tues – Fri.  Riesling Sekt – Total Wine - $15  Lenz Moser – Grüner Veltliner - $11  Clean Slate Riesling - $11  Pfeffingen Gewürztraminer - $26  Lenz Moser Zweigelt - $13  Uwe Schieffer Blaufränkisch - $20