Better Spät than Never

When I started Third Place Wine, I asked friends what kind of topics or myth-busting they would be interested in. One friend asked why German red wine sucks so bad.

I can’t say I was surprised since Germany is better known for its white wines, but I was amused because Germany actually makes some great reds, pinot noir to be exact. It’s kind of an open secret.

Some fun facts:

• The German word for “pinot noir” is “Spätburgunder” (literally “late Burgundian”)

• It’s the most widely-planted red grape, coming in third after Riesling and Müller-Thurgau

• Germany is the third largest producer of pinot noir, after France and the US

• They generally make a cool climate style (think Oregon, Burgundy)

It was funny because about a year ago I did a double-blind tasting specifically on German pinot noir and had recently repurchased my favorite bottle from that tasting (by the sisters at Meyer-Näkel) to confirm that I still actually liked it.

Sidebar: I do this sometimes because taste can be influenced by time or the environment—the most amazing wine you had during that fabulous vacation might actually have you questioning your judgment when you drink it at home in the winter.

So, I expanded on the opportunity to show my friend and re-taste myself by recreating the German pinot noir tasting as my first Flight Club event.

The wines

We covered 4 different bottles from the Baden (yellow), Rheingau (lime green) and Ahr (dark red) wine regions.

• 2014 Achkarren Schlossberg GG (Baden) by Dr. Heger

• 2012 Hochheim Reichestal GG (Rheingau) by Künstler

• 2019 Malterdinger (Baden) by Bernard Huber

• 2016 Pfarrwingert GG (Ahr) by Meyer-Näkel

The setup

The equipment, place setting and methodology.

• The wines (obv)

• Aluminum foil to wrap the bottles

  • Be sure to remove the entire capsule and cover anything that might identify a bottle (in this case, the raised “GG” on some of the bottles)

  • It also helps to have all bottles of the same shape if you are going to double blind this way (otherwise, decant all bottles)

• Post-its and pen to label the wrapped bottles

• Water and water glass (self explanatory)

• White A3 paper as a placemat to better view the appearance and color of the wine

• Paper cups suffice as spittoons

• Napkins because we’re not barbarians

• Note templates are not necessary but fun if you are a total nerd. You can also just write on your paper placemat or another piece of paper

• Wine glasses, one for each wine per person

  • You can use simple tasting glasses that look like this. I found some at about €1.30/piece at a hole-in-the-wall shop down the street

One person wrapped the bottles. Another numbered them, and then different people poured the wines for everyone. Wines 1-4 were poured from left to right, so the left glass for everyone was Wine 1 and the right glass was Wine 4.

The results

Each person gave each a score from 1 - 10 (10 being the best).

Then, in order to make the scores across people an apples-to-apples comparison, each person used their scores to rank the wines from 1 - 4 (1 being the best).

1st place = 1 point, 2nd place = 2 points, etc. That is, the wine with the fewest points was first place.

We then collected the scores and revealed the wines!

• Wine 1: Dr Heger had 20 points (4th place)

• Wine 2: Künstler had 13 points (2nd place)

• Wine 3: Bernhard Huber 17 points (3rd place)

• Wine 4: Meyer-Näkel 10 points (1st place)

On a personal note, I was proud that I could pick out not only my favorite again (Meyer-Näkel) but that I was also able to identify the Künstler again based on flavors I very technically describe as “stewed prunes and Robitussin”. (I never was great at tasting, as my past teachers can attest, but that is a story for another day.)

Most importantly, we managed to convince my friend that Germans make some pretty special pinot noir.