Blind Tasting Part I: One variety, two wines

And German red wine. Probably. No, for sure. German wine. No Persian. And both glasses are completely different. But similar in style. Both smell “wild”. Wilder and blunter than any Burgundy and Bordeaux varietals could ever smell. Dark, red meat. Quite clearly. And also the wood stain. Juniper, root vegetables and bitter herbs. A little more than in the other glass.

In the first glass a mature wine. You smell the first harmony, on the palate you almost feel a complete wine: fruit, wood and acidity play together nicely. In addition to blackberry and wild pickling, a well-stored and fat Havana cigar can be smelled. On the palate, a lot of power, a peppery and slightly leathery spice and a wonderful, solid structure that comes from long aging in barrels. A German Hermitage from Laumersheim, I think. And I’m right. The variety? That can only be Syrah. That is the reason why my host is singing a corrupted version of the Udo-Jürgens-classic. “Persian wine” because we have long believed that the Persian city of Syrah would be the namesake of this variety. But it is certainly not.

A Syrah. Most certainly one produced by Knipser, I think. I have drunk Knipser’s Syrah for the first time in 2000, which was not a very good year for white wines, and an even worse one for red wines. And Knipser’s vines were still young back then. They have just grown in the Palatinate ground for years. It was like a miracle that the wine from this year was successful. “Experimental cultivation” was written on the label bureaucratically correct.

But even then the wine was not a trial, but an impressive sign of what would be possible in the future in Germany. And now the re-encounter with Knipser’s Syrah, this time of the 2007 vintage, a very big step forward.Knipsers, the great artists at the barrel, turn even the most stubborn Syrah into a terrific German red wine). (felix.schenauer - cptn.cork)

In the second part, you can read about what mate Felix finds in the other glass...

Blind Tasting Part II: One variety, two wines ...(Ziereisen and Syrah Gestad)