Throughout December and so far in January I have experienced some fabulous wines, as you will have seen in the Christmas post and easily all of them could be Wines of the Month. However for January I have chosen two.
On the way back from Germany after the New Year celebrations I had some time to kill in Hamburg Airport. Now, I wouldn't usually buy food or alcohol in airports as their mark-ups are utterly ridiculous and make you kick yourself for not having made time for proper shopping beforehand but as I only had hand luggage there was no possibility of buying wine to take back to London at any other point in the trip so my purchases are well justified!
I was pleasantly surprised by the German wine selection in the airport shop. There were many kinds of Eiswein, lots of Pinot Noir and Rieslings but also a couple of Dornfelders. The 2012 Dr. Loosen Mosel Reisling Eiswein and a 2012 Anselmann Dornfelder from Pfalz made it into my basket after much perusing.
These were then debuted at a family dinner the following evening. No one around the table (myself included) had drank a wine made with the Dornfelder grape before. I had my suspicions that the reason for this was probably because Dornfelder did not really make particularly good wines, well that was instantly disproved! But since hearing that Dornfelder is one of the only black grapes that is being planted in the UK I have been very curious about it.
One place that currently sells it is Bolney Estate in Sussex and a gentleman I met at the Winchester Wine Festival from the Danebury Vinyards in Hampshire informed me that they were growing it there. This Anselmann Dornfelder had a beautiful violetty, floral nose, with less obvious notes of black fruit coming through, in the mouth there were plum and cherry notes with a sweet vanilla flavour from the time spent in oak barrels, without an overwhelming oaky taste and a lovely smooth creamy richness in the mouth, the tannins and acid were well integrated into the wine despite it being a young wine. It was very easy to drink and went well with our turkey pie (yep, still had some turkey left over!). Everyone was very impressed with this wine so it has been designated my first Wine of the Month, but has had to slip into the upper price bracket as although around 10 euro at the airport, it is more expensive when trying to buy it here.
Over now to the Dr. Loosen. Dr. Loosen is probably one of the most famous quality Mosel Riesling producers in Germany. There are always pictures of their bottles in the WSET accompanying texts, so it is for those reasons I selected their Eiswein, (Icewine - made from pressing frozen grapes) and because it was a Riesling. Some of the Eisweins on sale were made from different grapes and I was a bit skeptical about those as there are few grapes that have the versatility to make both great dry and sweet wines and I know that Riesling is definitely one of them, as is Chenin Blanc.
The Dr. Loosen was popped open after the turkey pie and luckily for me, while there was still (a rather large amount of) Stilton about. This was certainly an interesting wine, with a frisson of frizzante as is the case with many Rieslings. A great wine to end an evening on as it has a very low alcohol content of 6.5% due to the halting of fermentation to retain the sweetness and the fact that Rieslings tend to have a lower alcohol content coming from a cooler climate.
We all enjoyed the wine but felt that it was not such great value. At around £20 for a quarter bottle (yes, a quarter bottle!) it was a super-premium price. This is justified to an extent, producing Eiswein is very very costly and particularly on the steep high slopes of Bernkastel in the Mosel. It is labour intensive and you need to pay a lot to get pickers to drop whatever else it is that they are doing to harvest in below zero degree temperatures, often around Christmas time or New Year. I think the Canadian Icewine harvest just happened about 2 days ago actually.
From a purely drinking point of view though and for a quarter of the price I would opt for a Coteaux du Layon any day. Though this Eiswein did have some delicious notes of lime, it was very citrusy, in a lovely sweet way, there were also notes of honey and dried fruit. It is a very full-bodied, even syrupy wine and I thought that the petillance gave it another quite unusual dimension. A very good wine but I probably won't buy it again! But here it is, the smallest bottle of wine in the world! I should have put something next to it so you can see how small (cute, if not so pricey) is actually is!
The second Wine of the Month is made from a grape I mentioned earlier - Chenin Blanc. I have cheated with this wine. I first drank it in December and it costs £10.50, so 51p over budget. I apologise, but it is a sensational wine, easily available as you can get it in the co-op. I think it is excellent value for what it is and not your typical dry white wine either. Here it is:
A beautiful white Savennieres 2013, Domaine Des Forges, Le Moulin de Gue. Like a Vouvray, also from the Loire, this is a white wine that can age, but I felt on drinking, that it is perfect for drinking now. The wine has a deep flavour which come with some oak ageing. There were lemon and apple flavours, but with a clean and rich minerality cutting through. I felt it to be complex, yet refreshing and full of flavour. I would suggest a meatier fish maybe with this wine, possibly monkfish, yet there was an underlying delicacy in this wine so it could well compliment a lighter more delicate fish such as sea bream and I imagine it would go very nicely with scallops.
So there we have it, my Wines of the Month. If you have the chance give them a go and I would love to hear what you think about them or any suggestions you may have.
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