Second task is to figure out how much more diesel we need? When we received our car rental at Frankfurt Flughafen (airport) we purchased a plan where you bring the car back without refilling. It is a set price and they fill the vehicle on return. There is a dial on the dashboard that confirms how many kilometres are left given the existing fuel level in the tank--quite helpful really. We stopped at the local gas station and put in 5 litres of diesel (1.049 Euro per litre - for us Canadians remember that is in Euro dollars so add 40%). When we checked the updated remaining mileage it was 270 kilometres. My calculation of kilometres left to drive is pretty close. Of course, we want to return the car 'bone dry' to ensure the deal works in our favour. Lana says we should run out of gas just as we're pulling into the return kiosk then push it the remaining 10-15 feet if needed LOL!!! :-)
The only wine tasting appointment we have today is scheduled for 12 noon at Weingut Dr. Loosen (pronounced LOW-zen). For us B.C. people, this is one of the very few Mosel wines you can find in a Government Liquor Store (LDB). This winery has a world-wide reputation and very difficult to get an appointment. A number of his (Ernst Loosen) wines have been recommended by our Vancouver wine critic Anthony Gismondi. Another example is my research determined "Riesling Auslese from Erdener Pralat site is one of the world's best sweet wines." Plus, "Kabinett wines are models of feather-light winemaking genius." It is less than 10 minutes from our hotel by car. It is a 33 minute walk according to Google Maps so we will walk on this beautiful day. We leave early to ensure we are on time. We arrive in about 30 minutes and Markus comes outside to greet us and escort us into the wine tasting room. In a short while we are joined by a younger couple (Dave & Kelly) from Hoboken, New Jersey and a beginner (young lady) sommelier located in Essen, Germany.
Ernst Loosen inherited the Weingut from his parents who had not taken good care and it was basically bankrupt. He really turned this into a going concern. Markus indicated for him the Mosel Riesling is a "balance between fruit and acidity." They export 80% of their wine and 90% of these exports are non-dry Riesling. When I asked about their 2015 GGs he answered that they will not bottle these until end of October 2016. These GG will spend 12 month on their lees before being bottled. Markus was full of stories and told us about why our first wine tasting was a Pinot Blanc. Apparently, an old winemaker had a parcel of vines between two of their wines and Loosen offered to buy. The deal was he had to buy another parcel which had the Pinot Blanc. Dr. Loosen's Pinot Blanc (Weißburgunder) was delicious so a very good outcome.
The method Dr. Loosen uses to title their labels:
Entry level wines use name of the slate on label
Second level name of the village on the label
Third level name of vineyard on their label
Interesting fact is there are 32 Mosel Weinguts that are VDP against a total of around 5,000 Weinguts in the Mosel valley. Many of Dr. Loosen vineyards are blue slate, but they have red slate vineyards and volcanic red soil = terroir.
In 1868 the ruling Prussian government classified the Mosel vineyard estates and then charged higher taxes dependent on whether your vineyard was classified Grand Cru versus lower classifications. Dr. Loosen has six GG wines which is very unique to the Mosel. They also bottles a GGR or GG Reserve in order to elevate their GG's This isn't an official category, but they are trying to convince the VDP to make one. Sounds like what Ernie Loosen wants, Ernie Loosen gets. After all, they own 50 hectares and produce on average around 300,000 bottles yearly. That is the biggest production we have encountered. The Dr. L export brand is their entry level wine. Many of their vines are 40-50 years old and in some older vineyards the vines are more than 120 years old--all are ungrafted. "Quantity of older vines is low, but quality of wine high".
They leave their GG calibre wine on lees for one year except the entry level wines. Made in stainless steel first and then into the old German oak neutral wooden barrels. Screw cap on first and second level wines and drink within 3 to 5 years. Spontaneous fermentation of course. I asked Markus how the GG wines age he indicated the sweetness disappears and less acidity so the flavour of the grape remains. No botrytis grapes are used in their GG wines. They may pick up to 3 to 5 times in a vineyard. All grapes are hand-picked by up to 50 pickers with many from Poland and Romania. In fact, Ernst Loosen built two houses for the pickers stay in during the harvest season. Alte Reben designation means vines greater than 25 years old.
Another interesting story about how winemakers children will marry between families to retain vineyards in the same family. There is a family connection with Robert Weil (Rheingau), S.A. Prüm, J. J. Prüm and Pauly-Bergweiler. An old German saying ..."beauty will pass, hectares will stay." One thing we were wondering about was the fact that within a vineyard, there are parcels. Within each parcel, there are rows and then vines. We're learned that in some parcels, one winery may only own 2 rows. Or that within a row, two different wineries may own different plants. This might cause confusion when it comes time to harvest. How did this happen we wondered? Well, today we learned that when a family patriarch passes, his vineyard might end up divided amongst all the children. The only way to do this would be to give parcels and even rows to different children. Over the years as each patriarch passed, the splitting would get finer and finer thus resulting in one or two rows here, four or five row there, etc. etc.
Marcus tells us that there's a very small slice of a vineyard where two rows have mixed ownership BY PLANT!! And that during the past 2 harvests, Dr. Loosen has accidentally harvested all the grapes. This resulted in a very upset neighbour. It was too late to separate the grapes as they had already been pressed so Dr. Loosen paid the other owner out based on average yield per plant and quality of the grape. Easier said than done as Dr. Loosen offered to pay for "spatlese" quality but the owner insisted they were "auslese". Also, the owner argued that the yield was 50% more per vine than what Dr. Loosen had estimated. The funniest thing is that apparently all this negotiation amounted to about 100Euro--which for Ernie Loosen is pocket change and a complete waste of time for him to even be concerned about :)
We have wondered about flooding on the Mosel and Markus indicated the last big flood was in 1993. We finished our wine tasting with a tour of the old wine bottle cellar. It was a tough decision as the 2011 Erdener Treppchen Auslese at 90 residual sugar at 15 Euro was delicious. We bought the 2013 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett at 40 grams residual sugar for 12.50 Euro. Slight effervescence and a unique flavour profile that we could open in 2017.
We learned more about Riesling and in particular this Weingut that exports to B.C. Their primo vineyard is Erdener Prälat. Markus produced a couple of wine not on their list so that was very special. We drank 11 wines over a period of 100 minutes. Great walk back to Bernkastel along the slow moving Mosel in the warm sunshine.
Weingut Dr. Loosen nestled against the vineyards and beside the Mosel.
This is the VDP designation you will find on their wine bottles and on their Weingut.
Entrance to Weingut Dr. Loosen
This is the wine tasting room at Weingut Dr. Loosen. Very nice and seems like you are in a cellar.
Drank wine bottles that are being collected by the Weingut and on display in their wine tasting room. Lana's panoramic shot.
This is a 200 ml wine bottle that is specifically made for Weingut Dr. Loosen by an Italian manufacturer. Lana said it looked like a baby bottle!! No Icewine produced though since 2012. :-(
We encountered three swans while walking along the Mosel. We started feeding them small pieces of bread. Towards the end they lost any inhibitions and were getting pretty aggressive with their beaks. Maybe we shouldn't be feeding the swans?
On our walk back to our room, we stopped at Venezia Eis-Cafe for the regional ice-cream favourite Spaghettieis (spaghetti ice). Soft ice cream pressed through a cylinder with holes so it comes out looking like spaghetti. It is pretty good. This restaurant was packed. We ate outside in the shade.
Lana's order of Toast with Salami und Käse. Basically our Canadian equivalent of a grilled cheese sandwich complete with ketchup for dipping.
For dinner tonight we decided to drive to the place we tried to walk to last night. Yes, this restaurant is up at the top of the hill. There is no way you could walk that distance unless you have a lot of time and are in excellent shape. This German cuisine restaurant is Waldschenke With Heart. We were welcomed and early because there were no other diners. We picked a table against the window so we could look out over the Kues side of the river and in fact could clearly see our hotel. We are very high up through all the steep vineyards below. Our order took 30 minutes to arrive despite the fact the place was empty.
Lana's order of Wurstsalat mit Hausbrot. We have described this dish before and the Hausbrot is the house bread. It is a huge portion and I help her with it but we still eat only about half of it.
We've been having some challenges inserting videos into our blog pages. Lana did some research and decided to add the videos to her Youtube account so here are three short (3) videos we filmed so far (we think you can't access them in previous posts).
At Weingut Melsheimer fermenting wine (3 seconds)
Braunenberg music man (16 seconds)
Aldi auto bun dispenser (9 seconds)
Our last task for the day is to sort the wine bottles in their wine skins between the three suitcases and re-pack our suitcases. Tomorrow morning we drive to Koblenz although we have two wine tasting appointments before we reach Koblenz.
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