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

mosel regionals
Mosel wine is one of the easiest wines in the world to enjoy, yet when the novice has cut his teeth
on the usual regional blends, the real thing may be too steely for him. Most regionals come from
Müller-Thurgau grown in flat sites on the alluvial side of the river—if they come from Germany
at all (hell, if they come from grapes at all). Most are bought on the bulk market as grapes, must,
or unfinished wine, commissioned through brokers who are ordered to procure X thousand
liters at X per liter. It’s a market that calls another breed of procurer to mind.
I’d like to encourage people to drink genuine, honest Mosel wine. I think you agree. Therefore
it seems to me if we want to trade people up from regionals, we’d better establish a true style
among those regionals. That means Riesling. My regionals are 100% Riesling. Even their
Süssreserve is almost always Riesling. They are not purchased on the bulk market, but cask by cask
from growers with whom the bottling firm of J. & H.
SELBACH has done business for many years. Nor are
they the most expensive regionals you’ll be offered,
though you can certainly pay less if you don’t care what
you sell your customers. I’ve heard all the arguments
that the “Piesport customer” only wants a price. One
thing I can promise you. He will never care about quality
if you don’t. Taste some of that cheap stuff some
time, and see if you can look a customer in the eye as
you take the money from his hand. Good luck.
I’m occasionally asked why I ship regionals at all.
What’s a nice guy like me doing trafficking in
Piesporters and Zellers, anyway? Well obviously, the
category exists and this gives me a choice with a high
road and a low road, and I can choose the way that
makes me proud. Plus it’s tonnage. Oh yeah, that. But a
few years ago Johannes Selbach and I began to wonder
whether we could create our own wine which would
fulfill all these commercial functions, provide easily
memorable “brand” identity and fill containers and
give us something we could call our own, which wouldn’t
have to be defended as we must even with our honorable
Piesporters.
Thus, the development of what we’re certain will
prove to have been an epochal event in the history of
wine commerce. Ladies and gentlemen of the Academy:
I give you TJ Riesling!
And I give you an IMPROVED TJ Riesling! We have
completely redesigned the packaging so as to confuse the
unwary consumer into thinking it is a bottle of CALI-
FORNIA WINE, or maybe even ITALIAN wine.
So take another gander at TJ. If it’s done well for you,
it’ll probably do even better. If it hasn’t done well I’ll bet
it will start. If you’ve never considered it—baby now’s
the time!
The Proud and Noble History of TJ Riesling
I heard an unbelievable story. There was some sort of
tasting put on by the German Wine Institute, for the purpose
of determining a style of German Wine that would
specifically and particularly appeal to the American
market. I guess there were marketing experts present—I
wish I’d been the fly on the wall for that one! A bunch of
wines were tasted blind, most of them brands already on
the market. But here’s the punchline: when the votes
were tallied, one wine stood out. here was precisely the
perfect wine to appeal to us Yanks. It answered all the
necessary Concepts. Maybe they thought it tasted good
too. It was TJ Riesling.
Ah, beginner’s luck! I am proud of being a marketing-bonehead.
When Johannes and I first conceived and
created the wine, all we wanted was something regionally
typical that didn’t pander with softness or excessive
sweetness.
We wanted to charge enough for it to distance it
from the Piesporter genre, and also to give us latitude in
choosing excellent base wines for the blend. We wanted
a wine that tasted slatey and appley as all the best Mosels
do, and we wanted a wine that would accommodate the
widest possible variety of foods. That means we wanted
just a discreet hint of sweetness, enough so the wine
wouldn’t taste acid or sharp. Finally we wanted a wine
that would be sensitive to vintage, not a product that
would always taste the same. We remain committed to
the profile of TJ as a consistently slatey and crisp Mosel
Riesling which should be both agreeable and serious.
Since the 1992 vintage, TJ Riesling has always been better
than its class. I am certain there isn’t a superior Mosel
regional on the market.
43
MOSEL WINES