Advice on German wine tasting/dinner

Salut/Hi Larry,

Sorry about the delay in my follow up.

le/on Wed, 11 Aug 2004 10:03:51 -0400, tu disais/you said:-

And when my vinous education was taken in hand by Martin Chris, & Bill, back in the mid 70s, so was I!! Everyone starts sometime there's no disgrace in being ignorant about a subject. The disgrace comes either in pretending to knowledge you don't have or to denigrating the knowledge of othes IMO.

I'd not plan an _identical_ menu, with exactly the same dishes, probably, but indeed it's perfectly possible to plan an excellent 6 course meal with wines from just one country.

I'll ignore France, because it's obvious you can from there. Oops, sorry don't want to seem condescending.

Start with a light champagne for aperitif. Then a Loire white with oysters, Muscadet or Sancerre would both be magnificent, so would a riseling from Alsace. Then for a fish course, the whites queue up..... White Bordeaux or Bergerac, dry white from Rhone, White Burgundy. the list's almost endless. Entree. Again the whites queue up, want to serve morels stuffed with veal sweetbread? No probs - any big Meursault, or a white Hermitage.

For the meat course, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Languedoc, Cahors, any of those would be wonderful. You can easily choose some cheeses that weill finish them, or completely switch to something like a vin jaune for some Eastern French cheeses. With a Blue cheese, a monbazillac, or a botrytised loire, or or or. And then ether the same for a dessert, or you can switch to something like a Muscat to Beaumes de Venise for a mindboggling match with an Apricot and almond tart.

Austria, you could almost plan a 6 course meal based on Gruner Veltliner alone.

Hungary. Easy too, you've got whites of all types, reds from light to full and arguably the most versatile dessert wines in the world.

Italy Easy peasy.

Spain Like falling off a log. With wines like the best Riojas in various styles, you've got 4 courses without pausing, then a top Cava fizz, and a malaga, or a PX sherry. no probs.

Portugal, some lovely light whites, some awful ones, (I HATE Mateus) magnificent reds, fabulous cheese wines (Ports) one of the best consommé wines (Madeira sercial) and a sumptuous moscatel (Setubel 25 yo) you've all anyone could want.

Australia.

Super rieslings, excellent chardonnays, mind boggling Syrahs, and some more of the best liqueur wines in the world. no probs.

New Zealand just as wide a range.

South Africa (I'm profoundly ignorant), but my spies tell me that it would be easy to find 6 wines of wildly different styles.

Chile again, easy, USA no probs.

All sorts of reasons. The French do it because it would never occur to them to look outside France. Some Americans would do the same (;-)). In many wine producing countries, they'll do it because they know the wines of their own country better. In non wine producing countries, where in general the choice is far wider and more eclectic, they may do it as a fun exercise.

No, because I didn't think of it! A germanic salad is often (like some from the USA) dressed quite sweet, which is often difficult to match. Also, speaking for my own habits, I often serve a green salad as an accompaniment/follow on to the main meat course, so simply assumed the possibility of this without even considering it as a separate course.

Salut/Hi Dale Williams,

le/on 11 Aug 2004 14:56:31 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Yes, effectively that was what was the most difficult challenge in planning a meal to show off the different German wine styles. I'll come back later about the Nahe.

Salut/Hi Dale Williams,

le/on 11 Aug 2004 14:59:52 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Agreed, Dale, I thought about both these exceptions, and hoped that out of charity you would include that in the "almost". in general in Europe, and to a lesser extent I believe, in the USA, we almost equate "Chinese" with "Cantonese" due to the geopolitical position of Hong Kong, for example, and the relative ease for the Cantonese to leave China, as compared with the Hunanese and other inland and more isolated regions. But in any case, my point remains that if my reading of the OP's intentions are clear, a lamb egg roll would be entirely atypical of both countries.

Yup, though the OP didn't seem to want specific suggestions as he wasn't sure he could get them. What I fear is the risk that he'll get random Grosslage wines from lesser producers, because that's what is available to him.

Yup, as has been pointed out. Like Badacsony beside Lake Balaton, the volcanic soil and the microclimate gives wines of greater character and intensity.

I was tempted ;-)) But I'm not as up to the mark with them as I am with some of the other regions.

Something like:

YUp, but given how most German reds are, one would need to be careful over the dish.

Ta.

Riesling crosses- Darting's Scheurbes, for

Indeed it can, I've got _one_ bottle left of 1975 Dürkheimer Fronhof Huxelrebe Beerenauslese. I _won't_ drink ith with a dessert, but on its own, probably on a summer Sunday afternoon, contemplating the joys of being alive.

Salut/Hi TB,

le/on 12 Aug 2004 04:23:39 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

No "of course" about it. But I thank you sincerely for saying so!

Very interesting. I rejected the Spätburgunder Weißherbst as being likely to be _extremely_ hard to find outside Germany.

I simply forgot about Sekt, and I'm ashamed of myself. I remember to this day the intense pleasure I had with a bottle of Heymann-Löwenstein Sekt (I'm sorry, but I don;t have further references) one evening as a pre-prandial drink. Wonderfluffle.

Agree. As I said to Dale, I'm not as well up on the Nahe as I should be, especially after 15 yeares living in France.

Interesting points. As you will have gathered, I'm quite a fan of German wines, though I don't drink as wide a variety nowadays as I'd like to. That said, I've yet to have a red that impressed me. I'm tempted to enrage half of the political correct here by paraphrasing Dr Johnson about women preaching. "A German making red wine is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Tchuß

That is by far my favorite point in a meal to eat a green salad; I've always wondered whether this was "improper" or unconventional because I've never been served by others in this order.

The only problem with it is that I usually feel so good after the salad that I don't want any of dessert/drinks.

-- kov

"Ian Hoare" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Exceptions exist. Once at Jordan&Jordan in Saar I tasted a St. Laurent red wine from the Scharzhofberg(!). Not bad at all, deep red and concentrated, it was. Too bad Peter Jordan fell on hard times and had to sell, but the winery which subsequently changed back to it's old name of van Volxem is now in the super star class. Anders

My thanks again to all who posted advice and suggestions.

To clarify some more, "Lamb Egg Rolls" are something my wife ( a skilled chef) came up with for a twist on the traditional Asian egg roll or spring roll, a bunch of stuff wrapped in a won-ton wrapper. You would be amazed at what they taste like. I suggest you get some lamb, some veggies and start frying, experimenting to fine tune it to your own taste. We have been making them for years and just have never gotten around to pairing a wine with them.

This particular dinner is about the 10th or so in a tasting group with

The couple hosting chooses the theme and buys and prepares the the food and wine. We split the cost of the wine for each meal amoungst us to defray the cost. It is really an economical way to taste a lot of wine with friends. We average 2 wines that I would buy again from each dinner. We have learned about alot of good and bad wines and producers.

The last time we hosted we did a light series of appetisers with '96 vintage champaigns. That was a blast. Sometimes ita a traditional multi course meal, sometimes it is more exotic.

We have never done anything with German wines (but have done Alsace and once found a treasure trove of a unbeliveable desert wine from Austria (Hopler Elisio) but that is about it. ) so I started reading and figured I'd ask here.

Having spent some significant time in the past with friends in the Bodensee, Swabia and Berlin, I was just never exposed to the wines. Of course, I was much more interested in beer then, with wines being a new thing for me over the last 3-4 years. Before that I was (and still am) addicted to Belgian brewing, Mostly Trappists and well aged Lambics, Gueze etc... I'm lucky to have a guy who would ship the stuff directly to me here in the US (Boston).

Anyway I have rambled enough. Thanx again...

Chris

I did have Moroccan Spring Rolls not too long ago at a restaurant. We ordered a Merlot that day, and since reading your first message, I have been trying to remember the name (I especially enjoyed the match, and wanted to share that). I finally remember. It was a 2000 Markham Merlot (Napa Valley). Not sure if it would go as well with Asian egg rolls (I usually go with Gewürztraminer when eating egg rolls, if I'm having wne). But the lamb would be enough incentive to switch over to red for that course.