So we had our first sunny day over the weekend. It’s a perfect time to move on from dense, warming wines to something more fresh but still containing a lot of substance as Belgium never seems to heat up properly. Spring is, together with autumn, my favourite time of the year to drink wine. Now what to drink with sunny but cold weather?
Structured with acidity, riesling is the perfect wine for this time of the year with its sunny fruitiness and a refreshing undercurrent of minerality. There are a lot of different styles when it comes to riesling though, proof again that it is one of the worlds finest grape varieties. We will just keep it simple however and focus on the wine I enjoyed most this week, Quarzit 2013 by Peter Jakob Kuhn in the Rheingau.
PJ Kuhn is considered one of the greatest but controversial wine producers in Germany. His wines are almost unique in a sense that they are uncompromising in style, focused on expressing terroir instead of varietal character. His are some of the few wines in Germany where the impression of licking wet stones comes to mind. Extremely dry, even ever so slightly tannic in structure. The taste is compact, a hint of salinity that I thought I could only find in Albarino but most of all elegance and length. The acidity here is present but sharp as a knife. It is remarkable as it is perfectly in balance with the minerality, really making the difference between a great and an average wine. The two combine very well up until the finish and even though this is clearly a deep wine with a lot of impact, the almost ethereal lightness that you get but that keeps on lingering is truly a sign of a great wine. At less than 15 euros, this is a steal!
PS – As I have my sommelier exams next Monday, there will be no new post over the weekend, stay tuned for our next wine on Wednesday 18th of March!
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