VINIDA - Germany beyond Riesling

While Denmark’s closest wine producing country is rightfully synonymous with Riesling, there are many other exciting grapes and wines. Only about ¼ of vineyards today are planted with Riesling, ever more of which is turned into dry wine rather than traditional sweeter Prädikat styles. As climate has warmed over the past 40 years vineyard plantings of black grapes have gone from a mere 10% to a whopping 33%, most of that being Pinot Noir (Spätburgunder). The proximity makes Denmark one of the very best places in the world for Spätburgunder enthusiasts and the range of styles means there’s good value to be found for anyone balking at prices of Burgundy these days.

There are excellent white wines made from the likes of Silvaner and Pinots Gris and Blanc (Grauburgunder and Weissburgunder respectively) as well. Indeed, Germany produces some of the best white Pinot wines in the world, combining fresh acidity with intense flavours. Regional differences also shouldn’t go unremarked: while the northerly Mosel and Ahr regions are still relatively cold, Rheingau and Pfalz are already notably warmer. The trend only continues further south and east with wines from Baden often exceeding 14% and highly continental Franken producing some truly exceptional wines.

In this tasting we will sample the length and breadth of German wine regions and wine production through eight wines. One or two Rieslings will still be included in the tasting - it would be borderline unfair to avoid it. But those will serve more as a familiar point of reference so we can better understand other grapes, which we will put on centre stage for the evening. The main purpose of this tasting is to bring your understanding of Germany’s fast evolving wine landscape up to date and provide a more systematic understanding of the different wine regions.

Understanding German wine is well worth it. Its wine regions are some of the easiest to visit, a mere 9-10h drive from Aarhus compared to 13-14h for Champagne and Burgundy. German wines are also very well represented on the Danish market - it’s probably the only country whose wines are better represented in Denmark than the European wine-import behemoth of Britain.

This tasting will be presented in English by Domen Prešern DipWSET of Roots Vin (domen@rootsvin.dk).

This tasting is open for everyone, but as we sometimes will be very detailed, it does give a better experience, if you have some basic knowledge of wines. A good help is to study this “cheat-sheet” kortlink.dk/2pdep and kortlink.dk/2pdfs, to get a basic understanding of wines, their appearance, aromas, flavours and structure.

It is possible to order a quick snack meal served at 18:10. Options will be sent.

The presentation will be in English

This event is organised by Poul Tang poul.tang@m.ida.dk – 51 71 52 40.

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