Introductory blog

Tonight, I welcome all fellow wine lovers to my new blog.  In my continuous attempt to improve my website, I am adding a blog feature.  On this page, I plan to share my thoughts about the wines that I drink (almost always along with my wife) and the dinners that we pair them with.  I hope to provide honest descriptions of the wines that might be used to help others with shopping and pairing plans.  While I spend a great deal of time as a wine educator, I am very much independent and have no professional relationships with any wine makers, wine distributors or wine retailers. My opinions are entirely my own (often influenced by my main tasting partner, my wife) and are not affected by any outside influences.

2013 Riesling Heyl zu Herrnsheim

Tonight, my wife announced that we would be having Weiner Schnitzel for dinner and asked me to go choose a suitable wine to pair it with.  I selected a 2013 Riesling from the Heyl Zu Herrnsheim winery’s  Pettenthal vineyard in Rheinhessen, Germany.  That was all I knew about the wine.  As we were enjoying the first sips, I noticed the “eagle with grapes”, symbolic of VDP vineyards, on the foil. The grapes are from the Pettenthal vineyard, and the estate receives the highest possible classification from the VDP, Grosse Gewächs (GG), despite the fact that this particular bottle appears to be a QBA and not Pradikatswein.  The vineyards can be traced back to 1561 and have been within the same Heyl family since  1909. The wine was made using indigenous yeasts and fermented in oak barrels with no temperature control!

At the first pour, the color stood out as a medium golden color, not unexpected given its 12 years of bottle aging.  Aromas of petrol, slight oxidation, orange peel, herbs and apples jumped from the glass, as this is a highly aromatic grape.  One sip revealed a very pleasant wine with a slight bit of residual sugar (17.5 g/L).  The acidity level remained quite high and offset the sugar to reveal a medium to full-bodied wine with lots of fruit flavors, including apple, pear, lemon, lime and a bit of stone fruit.  It has a long, pleasing finish and alcohol levels are nearly undetectable.  (I guessed that the level would be 10-11% and the bottle confirmed it to be 10.5% abv.) It was quite obvious that the GG classification applies beautifully to this bottle of wine. 

The wine paired nicely with the veal.  The combination with the meat enhanced the fruity flavors, though I was not quite as enamored of the residual sugar with the veal as was my wife.   However, the baked sweet potato was a spectacular match for this wine.  The sweetness in the potato was perfect with the Riesling and brought out some wonderful nectarine and peach flavors in the wine.  (I wasn’t much interested in the wine with the baby cauliflower, but that wasn’t really part of the pairing conception).