Mood:
specialTopic: Bartending
In our last wine class of the semester, we covered German wines. Our teacher gave us "A Brief Guide to the Wines of Germany," which I'll whittle down for you, here.
As you may have learned by now, location and climate have much to do with how the grapes grow, when they are ready for harvesting, and how the wine is going to taste. Well, Germany has a cool northern climate, which makes it very difficult for the grapes to reach full-ripeness. So, German wine makers have created a ripeness-based quality scale. In general, the riper the grape, the richer and more complex the wine. However, the scale fails to recognize the quality of the vineyard or maker, so by the label alone, different varieties of wine from different vineyards could be the same on the ripeness scale.
GERMANY'S LEVELS OF WINE QUALITY
Qualitatswein/QbA: German for "quality wine." This wine comes from one of Germany's 13 designated wine regions. It is an estates basic wine and can be very good.
Qualitatswein mit Pradikat/QmP: Literally means "predicate." These wines have a certain level of quality, which is one of six: Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenaulese, Eiswein and Trockenbeerenauslese. These are the finest German wines.
Kabinett: The lightest, most delicate style. Made from ripe grapes picked early in the harvest.
Spatlese: "Late harvest." This wine is richer and has more body than Kabinett because the grapes have ripened for an extra week or so.
Auslese: "Selected from the harvest." This is the overripe, late-harvested grapes that are selected cluster by cluster. These wines are often made fruity with residual sweetness. It is considered, by most winemakers, to be their finest achievement.
GoldKapsel: "Gold kapsel." This distinguishes a special wine from the other collection.
Beerenauslese/BA: "Berry selection." These are rare dessert wines, made from overripe wines which have been affected by botrytis mold. These grapes are selected one at a time.
Eiswein: "Ice wine." A rare dessert wine, made from overripe grapes which have frozen solid on the vine.
Trockenbeerenauslese/TBA: Germany's greatest and rarest dessert wine.
Surprisingly, my favorite wine of the night was the 2007 Desiree Chocolate Dessert Wine from Rosenblum Cellars. I have never, ever had a sweet, dense wine that I enjoyed. However, this one had a nice texture along with flavors of chocolate and raspberry.
The other wines we tasted are: Aveleda's 2007 Grinalda Reserva DOC from Portugal, the 2008 Legado del Conde Albarino by Roberto Regal Lopez, the 2008 Vina Gormaz Tempranillo by Jose Carlos Garcia, the 2004 Reserva El Coto de Rioja, and the 2004 Bodegas Nieto Senetiner Bornarda.
