Germans Have Been Hiding Their Best Wines. A Sommelier Opens 3

Germany gave us Mercedes, Porsche, the Autobahn, efficiency and blondes. I mean, who doesn't like attractive blondes? But more on that later. Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese, Bierenauslese, Eiswein, Trockenbierenauslese. What happened? Most people know next to nothing about German wine and the little they think they know is either wrong or 20 years out of date. That's not your fault. It's this. Here's what nobody tells you. Behind that terrifying label is some of the most exciting wine being made anywhere on earth right now. So forget the words for a minute. I'm not going to start with a lecture. I'm going to pour you three bottles that shouldn't surprise you and absolutely will. Hi, I'm Anika Riboldi. I'm a professional sommelier, wine judge and diploma WSET graduate. And today I will introduce you to the Germany nobody put on the postcard. Riesling is one of the greatest aging white grapes at the top end. The best examples can go for decades. Acidity during most of the heavy lifting while the wine gets more interesting. So yes, great Riesling belongs in the same conversation as serious white Burgundy. Usually without requiring a small inheritance. But you do not need to want 20 years to get to the point. This is Pizza La Huerfa 16 from Saar. Entry level, dry and basically the front door into why people get so obsessed with this grape. Let's taste this one on the nose. It's fresh and electric. You get bright lime, green apple, white peach and a cool western minerality like rain on the slate. All right, let's try this one on the palate. It's bright. Mouthwatering acidity hits first. Precise, alive. It's weight almost nothing and still fills your whole mouth. And that race and acidity is why Riesling is a monster with food. And a little sweetness only makes it better with heat. Thai green curry, sushi, roast chicken and lemon. Anything with chili. Here's a shortcut most people miss. Look for two letters on the bottle. GG. It stands for Grosses Gewichts, which in German for Grand Cru completely dry. No sugar, no confusion. If you see GG on the label, pay attention. Now you're probably waiting for the one thing everyone knows about Riesling. That petrol and kerosene note. It isn't here and that's the whole point. No need to smell kerosene if you don't like it. That petrol smell is not a Riesling birthmark. It comes from a compound called TDN and it builds up slowly as the wine ages and faster when there is more sun and more heat. A young Riesling from a cool climate like Germany often shows none of it. Poor young Riesling grows somewhere hot and sunny. Australia, let's say. And it will smell of petrol from the very first day. That aroma was never telling you Riesling. It was telling you climate. Cool and restrained or warm and sun-soaked. Learn to read that one thing and you can read half of the wine world. Want to learn how to read a wine label from any country and know what to expect before you even open a bottle? That's exactly what we do in the Wine Sense Method course. A simple system to help you understand wine and choose with confidence. The link is below and right on your screen. But there is one problem with German Riesling. The label. So why aren't more people drinking German wine? I have a theory. Because apparently making brilliant wine wasn't difficult enough. They also wanted you to pass an entrance exam before buying it. When I was studying for my diploma WSET, German wine classification nearly finished me. And like every serious academic, I developed a highly sophisticated learning technique. I invented completely inappropriate sentences. Six words that look like a TOCS audit. Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese, Bierenauslese, Eiswein, Trockenbierenauslese. No, that's not an appropriate part yet. Keep seducing attractive blondes. Expect trouble. Is this educationally appropriate? Absolutely not. Till I remember it for the rest of my freaking life. So I'm not going to teach you German wine the way I had to learn it. I'm going to teach you how to cheat. That's right, Miss Lada. Meaning how ripe the grapes were when picked. Think of a peach getting riper. Softer. Richer. More expressive. Kabinett is the light and delicate. And Spatlese volume up. Auslese riper and richer still. And everything is fine until the blondes arrive. Bierenauslese, Eiswein, and Trockenbierenauslese. From there, we're in the sweet wine territory. But Annie, you'd ask, does Kabinett or Spatlese tell me if the wine in my glass is dry or sweet? No. And that's where most people give up. So I'm giving you one German word. Just one. Trocken. It means dry. Kabinetttrocken, dry. Spatlesetrocken, dry. Different ripeness, but still dry. If you avoided German wine your whole life because you do not like sweet, you weren't avoiding the wrong time. You were avoiding the wrong word. And Trockenbierenauslese, which has that Trocken sitting right there in the middle, is actually dry. Absolutely not. I told you. Everything is fine until the blondes arrive. Okay, that's enough, German. I promised you a tool kit, not a citizenship. Now, let me show you something much simpler. Spatburgunder. Apparently, I spoke too soon. Looks like some obscure German grape, doesn't it? Well, it isn't. It's Pinot frickin' Noir. Germany has been growing Pinot Noir for centuries. But for a long time, this was one of the coolest places in Europe trying to ripen one of the most temperamental grapes. And then, the climate change, which is obviously terrible news for many things. And very good news for German Pinot Noir. Warmer growing seasons means the grapes now ripen far more reliably than they used to, while a lot of Germany still stays cool enough to keep the freshness and elegance that make Pinot Noir worth drinking in the first place. So, you get frightness and tension in the same glass. If you want to understand how climate can make you love or hate the exact same grape, I have the recent video just about this. And just like that, while everybody else has spent the last decade complaining about Burgundy prices, Germany has become one of the places I would look for serious Pinot Noir. And before you imagine three Germans experimenting with Pinot in somebody else's garden, know this country is actually one of the biggest Pinot Noir producers on Earth. Alright, the color. Pale, translucent colors. You can almost see through it. It gives red cherry, cranberry, a little rose, and a savory earthy note like a forest flow of terrain. The tannins are silky, the acidity is fresh, and the whole thing is built on elegance, not the muscle. Basically, if Burgundy prices have personally offended you, learn one German word, Spätburgunder. Serve it with duck, mushrooms, salmon, roast chicken, a charcuterie board. It's one of the most food-friendly reds you can actually buy. Quick question. Which country has one of the biggest appetites for sparkling wine on Earth? Most people would say France. Perhaps Italy. Germany is right up there as well. And almost nobody outside Germany knows it. Here is Sekt, German sparkling wine. Sounds simple. Obviously, Germans couldn't allow that. Because Sekt can be cheap industrial fizz make in a tank. Or it can be this. Bottle-fermented, aged-on-the-leaves, serious sparkling wine. And to tell one from another, remember, klassische Flaschengerung. It means traditional bottle fermentation. Basically, Germany looked at Champagne method and thought, excellent, now let's try make a customer pronounce it. All right, let's taste this one. On the nose. So I get toasted brioche, warm bread crust, crushed wild herbs, candied lemon peel, dried apricot, perhaps some subtle bee wax. All right, on the palate. So I get rich yellow plum, citrus oil, tactile weight and grip, intense smoky slake minerality, long, savoury, bone-dry finish. And if you also see Winter Sekt, that's another useful clue. You are looking at sparkling wine produced by a wine grower, rather than just generic Sekt. It's Champagne's disciplined cousin. Turns up on time, costs less, never makes a scene. Aperitivo, fried chicken, oysters, this wine will show you wonders. So we have a worthy Riesling that doesn't automatically smell like petrol station. Spag Burgunder, which literally Pinot Effing Noir. And sparkling wine, which can be made with the same traditional bottle fermentation principle you associate with Champagne. Not bad for a country whose labels look like administrative paperwork. So if you walk into the wine shop tomorrow, here is literally what I want you to remember. Spag Burgunder, Pinot Noir. Droken, dry, GG, serious dry wine from a top classified vineyard. Cabernet, Spatlese, Auslese, think ripeness ladder. They do not by themselves tell you exactly how sweet the finished wine is. Birren Auslese, Eiswein, Droken Birren Auslese. The blondes have arrived, expect trouble. That's it, you can now walk into a shop knowing considerably more about German wine than you did 10 minutes ago. Good, because Germany makes some of the most thrilling wines on the planet. You just have to get past the instructions. And the plants, you do not need a diploma WACC to buy one. I got one, so you don't have to. But if you want to walk into any shop in any country and actually read what's in front of you, that's the whole point of the Wine Sense method course. Link is below or right on your screen with the free demo to start. I'm Anne Garibaldi. Cheers.