German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

10
I’m sure I
didn’t convert
the guy, and I
p r o b a b l y
exploited his
good naturedness
(plus put
him on the spot
in front of his
date, hahaha),
but good grief,
the bullshit some
people believe
about themselves!
German wines and food: perfect together!
I don’t
know a single
human being who doesn’t prefer a ripe tomato to an
unripe one. Shall we share a basket of unripe strawberies?
Even a Granny Smith apple has some sweetness;
we’d spit it out otherwise. Somehow the wine world
seems to insist we ignore an otherwise routine animal
tendency, and affect to despise sweetness. If we were true
to our TRUE tastes, we’d fall over one another to get to
German rieslings. Then there wouldn’t be enough wine,
and prices would go up, and it’s probably good the way
it is. . . .
“The wines don’t work with food.” NOT!
“The wines are impossible to understand.” The
world is impossible to understand, using that logic. Look,
German riesling is absolutely simple in its essence. Lateripening
variety with naturally high acidity grown in the
most northerly latitude possible. Long hang-time. Lots of
opportunity to leach minerals from the geologically complex
sub-soils. Roots have to sink to find water, and roots
are able to sink because topsoils are poor. Topsoils are
poor because
most riesling
is planted on
mountainsides,
to
increase its
chance to
ripen, and rich
soil would
avalanche
every time it
rained. So the
wines are
fresh, vibrant
and minerally.
There. Now
you know
everything you
need to know
to “understand” German wine. The rest is fine-tuning.
There’s some stuff to memorize, like there is everywhere
else. If you care, you learn it.
“There’s too many different wines.” This is true, but
it’s inextricable from the jewel of the German wine experience,
just as it is in Burgundy. Comtes Lafon could
equalize the casks and produce one white wine and one
red wine, as he might were he a Bordelais. It would definitely
simplify things. Would you want him to? Would
the gain in simplicity outweigh the loss of fascination?
You tell me!
Of all the grapes—not just white grapes, but all
grapes from which wine is made—the Riesling is the
most innately fine and noble. If it’s grown in its habitat it
can give wines of incomparable vividness and complexity
all by itself, without having to be tweaked or twiddled
or eeked or diddled.
Unripe berries, anyone? Not!
As such I think Riesling, or indeed any wine with
these virtues (Loire Chenins come to mind), can give
the “discriminating” palate its greatest pleasure.
What German wine teaches us is it isn’t the EXTENT
of the flavor that tells, but its quality. We’ve all had
numerous big wines which were dull and crude, and
we’ve all had relatively little wines which simply tasted
lovely. But there’s confusion over this issue, and it
won’t hurt to repeat a couple of first principles. Bigger
isn’t better in this view of the world: better is better.
And the transparency of flavor of fine German wine
allows you to consider its structure and enjoy its
nuances, and teaches you that nuance and structure
are important. Train your palate this way and you’ll
be a better taster, as well as a more informed voter and
a finer human being.
Of course I can’t “prove” this, but here’s a telling tidbit.
Some time in 2004 there was this massive thread on
the eRobertParker bulletin board—I mean five pages,
hundreds of posts—ostensibly over a review of Jefford’s
The New France, but which quickly morphed into the