The Reigning Riesling
When the Wegmans in Central Park first opened, there was a pergola with high tables set between the cheese deli and the produce. On Thursday and Friday nights and Saturday afternoons the wine and cheese staff would share wonderful tales of that week’s wine and a perfect whatever nibblie was served that day. This “Perfect Pairings” gained a following and many wine drinkers came out.
Capitalizing on this momentum, The Fredericksburg Wegmans had, on occasion, invited a speaker to come to a formal tasting class. These classes were held upstairs, and we, the participants, would be treated with white-glove class. All sort of topics were covered, as long as it was about Bordeaux. Apparently, our Fredericksburg Wegmans had pioneered this approach to wine sales. Chris, the store manager way back then, had the genius idea that his staff would learn more about wine (and thus sell more wine) if they had experienced it by teaching it. Slowly other Wegmans were catching on to this.
Gainesville’s Wegmans had invited some German winemaker who had something to share about Mosel Rieslings. At least this was different from all the Bordaux seminars! The Gainesville store also had an upstairs room for conferences. What grocery store has a public conference room? And to top it off, there were no windows in this room. The guests sat at the long table, beautifully assembled with wine glasses, appetizers, flowers, and winery swag. And in comes this rather tall gentleman who owned his long, curly brown, Mick Jagger hair, with his brown suit jacket on top of white and blue checkered shirt with an apricot tie. The man himself, Dr. Loosen, the king of Riesling. The staff introduced him with a long list of accolades. He was Decanter’s Man of the Year in 2005, Wine & Spirits’ The world’s 50 Most influential Winemakers” in 2004. Dripping with awards. What a celebrity we were in the presence of! In Gainesville, Virginia! This icon would come there for a little tasting?
The first wine was poured, and he starts in on the power point presentation with lovely pictures of his winery. A bit of history, the property has been in the family for more than 200 years. Generally passed down to the daughter, who takes her husband’s name, and the winery also takes that name. When Earnest received the reigns, it was thrust upon him. His father was ill and none of the other siblings were capable of taking it on. Ernest had studied archaeology, and as such, the other siblings suggested that he might not find a job in that profession. The other siblings actually stated that they were not about to pay for his welfare!
Ernest’s father and grandfather only kept the winery because of tradition and made their money elsewhere, in politics. Thus, in 1988, Ernest assumed ownership, complete with unkept vineyards. The vineyard had horrible 60, 100, 120, 140-year-old un-grafted vines that had not been replaced! Apparently back in the 80s, vineyards would pull up vines when they reached 25 years old. It was a quantity vs quality decision as older vines don’t produce as much.
If that was not bad enough, the German wine exporting industry was in a slow recovery because of an Austrian wine scandal in 1985, and a devaluation of the dollar in 1986. Austrian wineries once used a toxic substance found in antifreeze to sweeten their wines, causing a scandal when some were exported to Germany and illegally blended with German wines. This led to recalls, legal repercussions, and damage to the reputation of both countries' wines. Austria implemented strict laws and temporarily shifted focus to dry wine production. The unfortunate part about it was that the Americans had not/could not differentiate German wines from Austrian. The winery was $500,000 in debt and had no customers.
The power went out. Lightning must have struck something, as the guests and staff were all now in the pitch-black-dark room with no windows, searching for their phones to put our flashlights on. Then pounding rain came.
How do people reinvent themselves? Ernest’s situation looked bleak. There was a high certainty that the family winery would be lost to some other investor for pieces. Ernest’s father had insisted that he study oenology at Geisenheim Wine School before studying archeology. Earnest returned with ideas on lower yields, organic farming, and using the 100 + year old vines with their concentrated fruit, despite the neighbor’s reticuling. What a diamond in the rough he had inherited! Ernest and his dad had talked about great grandfather’s production methods of oak aging Riesling for two or three years, which created the most expensive wines in the world between 1880 and 1918.
Riesling, of course, is Ernest’s favorite varietal. But he had a dream of also producing Burgundian style pinot noir. That was fulfilled in a couple of different ways. Earnest has collaborated with Appassionata’s Jay Somers from J.Christopher Wines in Oregon and Chateau Ste. Michelle in Washington. In 1997, Loosen purchased Villa Wolf which is an estate in Pfalz, Germany founded in 1756. Villa Wolf produces Pinot Noir, Pinot Noir Rosé, Pinot Blanc, and Pinot Gris.
Dr. Loosen’s wines are available in 90 countries around the world. Mostly they can be found in grocery stores. Like many other big brands, there are some bottles made for volume production and some of the lines are made for a little more elegance. But if it was not for these giants to push products into the US market, the other little guys might not have as easy a path to market.
Perhaps that is part of the reason for having iconic Mosel Riesling at City Vino. Eventually, the staff did find candles, and the light flickered off the glasses as Ernest joked about having to revert to a very old-school way of telling stories—of stubborn old vines and the strange turns life takes. The best wines are rarely just about what is in the glass; there are people and persistence behind them. It is refreshing when heroes can be touchable and laugh at themselves in situations like that.
Comments
Be the first to comment...