Quick Take
Laurie Love pours out what she learned during a weeklong tour through the German wine regions of the Rhine, Mosel, Saar, Ruwer and Ahr Valleys, including how climate change is affecting an industry long known for its sweeter wines. She also highlights upcoming local wine events you'll want to bookmark.
Welcome to Laurie Love on Wine! I am Laurie Love, a professional wine writer and educator based in Santa Cruz. In this column, I share my wine passion, knowledge, and experience with Lookout readers. Follow me on my wine blog, Laurie Loves Wine, and on Instagram at LaurieLoveOnWine. I love email from readers! Stay in touch: Email me at laurie@lookoutlocal.com. Join me as we journey together through the wonderful world of wine.
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WINE NEWS
Laurie’s wine travels
Last month, I traveled in Europe, and one of the highlights was a weeklong wine tour through the German wine regions of the Rhine, Mosel, Saar, Ruwer and Ahr Valleys with Napa Valley Wine Academy and Master of Wine Romana Echensperger. If you like wine, even just a little, I highly recommend visiting these parts of Germany. Filled with dramatic steep-slope vineyards, lazy meandering rivers and streams, and historic villages and castles, the natural area is beautiful and perfect for biking, hiking, driving or boating from one village to the next. Plus the wine and food are great! On the wine front, I had several key takeaways from this visit.
First, if you think all German wine is sweet, guess again. Yes, historically, German wines have been mostly sweet. But with climate change, this extreme northerly wine-growing area is able to ripen its signature grape, riesling, more fully than in the past. More ripening means more sugar available in the grapes to convert to alcohol, producing drier wines during fermentation. Although there are still sweet wines aplenty, German wine producers are making more dry wines (those with no residual sugar). This trend appeals to a wider audience in general, as the market sees demand for dry wine increase. To identify a dry wine, look for the terms trocken – “dry” in German – and GG (for Grosses Gëwachs, or great growths, and dry by law) on a German wine label.
Another aspect of climate change: Warmer climate means less disease pressure on the vines. So more and more vineyards there can convert to organic and biodynamic practices and avoid the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. You can spot these vineyards by the lush cover crop growing between the vines, such as dandelion, vetch and other beneficial crops that put nutrients into the soil.
The region is whole-heartedly committed to using sustainable vineyard practices as much as possible as it directly equates to better-quality wines. At her winery in the Rheingau (west of Frankfurt on the Rhine River), Eva Fricke is making some of the best dry riesling in the world, all from local organic vineyards (available at wine.com and K&L Wine Merchants).
Climate change also brings more threats of extreme climate events, such as late spring frost killing new shoots (which happened just days after we visited these vineyards), flooding, summer hail knocking out vines and early fall rain causing excessive mildew problems at harvest. More on that in a sec.
Besides riesling and sweet wines, German winegrowers are experimenting with other grape varietals and styles to showcase a wider variety from their region to the market. I tasted some outstanding bottles of sylvaner, an unsung, extremely versatile white grape variety, and pinot blanc (typically used in blends, and known as weissburgunder there) as well as many different orange wines and sekt (aka German sparkling wine).
The other grape varietal that we don’t usually associate with Germany, even though it is the most widely grown red varietal, is pinot noir (locally known as spätburgunder). The pinot noir I tasted, particularly from the Ahr Valley (about a half-hour drive south of Bonn), blew me away. Plush, red-fruited and aromatic with great structure and texture, it wasn’t the thin, bland red wine I had expected. These pinots, grown on ancient slate soils, are world-class.
The Ahr landscape is also super dramatic. This is extreme winegrowing on vertiginous steep terraced slopes up to a 60-degree angle, between 350 and 800 feet, and at 50 degrees latitude, the northernmost edge of viable winegrowing. (The Santa Cruz Mountains appellation is at about 37 degrees latitude as a comparison.) Here, residents and winegrowers are living climate change in real time. Not only are the pinot noir vines positively responding to warmer temperatures, producing riper fruit, the region is also experiencing devastating climate-related events.
On July 14, 2021, the Ahr Valley was hit by one of the worst floods in German history, as the Ahr River swelled overnight from torrential rain and swept away entire villages, killing over 130 people. When I was there, the effects of this terrifying event were still painfully evident. In the village of Dernau, we visited the winery Weingut Meyer-Näkel, run by two sisters, Meike and Dörte Näkel, who survived the flood by holding on to a tree in the river for over 11 hours while they watched their village, winery and barrels of their wine wash away. Miraculously, they survived, are rebuilding and are making some of the best pinot noir I’ve ever tasted. I highly recommend Meyer-Näkel pinot noirs, which are available on wine.com.
During my travels, I posted video reports from the vineyards. If you are on Instagram, check them out on Laurie Love on Wine. And read more about my wine travels on my blog, Laurie Loves Wine.
Cardboard wine bottles?
On the topic of climate change and sustainable practices, some wineries are experimenting with sustainable wine packaging to reduce their carbon footprint and the costs associated with escalating glass prices. I first reported on cardboard bottles produced by Frugalpac in Monterey in my Oct. 4, 2023, column. The first winery to use these cardboard bottles is none other than Bonny Doon Vineyard for its just-launched pink rosé wine, Carbon…Nay! ($16.99), available now at Whole Foods Markets and other select markets. Although they look like they are from another planet (in keeping with the Doon vibe), these special bottles cost less, are made from 94% recycled cardboard, and are fully recyclable.
Tasting room openings
Exciting news for fans of Domaine Eden wines! The sister property of historic award-winning Mount Eden Vineyards, Saratoga’s Domaine Eden is now open for tastings from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays by reservation only. The property is located at 2300 Congress Springs Rd. (Highway 9), sitting at 1,650 feet in the Santa Cruz Mountains up a 2-mile private driveway with spectacular views. The tasting includes Domaine Eden and Mount Eden wines. For more information and to make reservations, check their website.
Another top-quality, high-elevation Santa Cruz Mountains tasting experience recently opened up. Rhys Vineyards (11715 Skyline Blvd. in Los Gatos) is open for tastings by appointment only for the first time since its founding 15 years ago. Antonio Galloni of Vinous Media named Rhys his Winery of the Year in 2023. To schedule an appointment, go to the Rhys Vineyards website, email them directly or call 866-511-1520.
Wine List of the Week
This week, I’m loving the wine list at Saison Cellar & Wine Bar in Scotts Valley (222 Mount Hermon Rd., Suite I). The wines are hand-selected by owner/winemaker/wine director Mark Bright, who also runs two Michelin-starred restaurants in San Francisco. On offer are wines by the taste, glass, bottle, or flight. When I was there, the curated flights included Sparkling, White Wine, Saison Experience (featuring a trio of Saison Winery wines), Santa Cruz, and Old World. Not only is the presence of local wines strong on this wine list (Bargetto, Big Basin, Byington, Kathryn Kennedy, Madson, Sandar & Hem and of course Saison), it also does a great job bringing different grape varietals and regions to local wine-loving guests. You’ll find a grüner veltliner from Austria, nebbiolo from Italy and Tokaji wine from Hungary. The wine list changes often. Besides the variety, I love the depth of this list, with its obvious and welcome love of French wines, especially Burgundy. And of course, where else in Santa Cruz County would you find Krug Champagne by the glass, one of the world’s most luxurious, expensive and delicious wines.
UPCOMING WINE EVENTS
Every Thursday from 4 to 9 p.m., Big Basin Vineyards hosts Throwback Thursdays in downtown Santa Cruz (525 Pacific Ave.). Enjoy a glass of library (older vintage) wine at $15 while its DJ spins old-school vinyl records. This Thursday, the library wine is the 2011 Paderewski GSM red blend. More info here.
Every Friday evening, take a wine cruise on the Chardonnay II sailing yacht out of the Santa Cruz Harbor and on Monterey Bay. Each week hosts a different winery, and this Friday it’s Alfaro Family Vineyards & Winery. Tickets and info available here.
Don’t miss the first annual Surf City Wine Walk on Sunday, June 9, from 1 to 4 p.m. The walk-around tasting will take place among the Westside wineries, restaurants and shops around the Ingalls, Fair and Swift Street area. Enjoy wines from 13 small, family-owned wineries as you stroll from business to business. Get your tickets ($50) here.
Wines of Santa Cruz Mountains’ Taste of Terroir wine dinner series, happening monthly through September, are fun, delicious dinners that pair local chefs with local wineries and locally sourced ingredients. They are some of the best wine dinners you’ll ever attend, and I highly recommend them. The next one is Saturday, June 22, at 6 p.m. at lovely Storrs Winery (1560 Pleasant Valley Rd., Aptos) beside its organic vineyard with dinner prepared by chef Desmond Schneider and appetizers by Pizza Bones. Tickets and info here.
Speaking of wine dinners, the renowned Outstanding in the Field is setting up its next long table in Santa Cruz County this Saturday at Everett Family Farm in Soquel. Dinner will be prepared using Everett Farm and other local ingredients by chef Santos Majano (of Hook & Line in Santa Cruz), and wine is provided by Birichino winery. Tickets ($385) are still available online.
Until next time!
Cheers,
Laurie
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