Stuttgart Wine Festival Wealth and wine go together

Press, 4 November 1986, Page 16

Stuttgart Wine Festival Wealth and wine go together

Much wine and deep fried Camembert is consumed during the Stuttgart Wine Festival, which marks the beginning of autumn. Popular staples like sauerkraut and Spaetzle, a local noodle which, when deep fried, looks just like French fries is also much in demand. therefore comes as no stunning surprise that on a federal level, Stuttgarters soak up four times more grape juice than other West Germans. As one hearty festival participant put it, “they drink beer in the North.” i Stuttgarten haughtiness is encouraged in no small measure by the fact that Stuttgart is West Germany’s wealthiest city. Both Daimler-Benz (Mercedes) and Porsche have their headquarters here. The annual turnover for the population of just some 600,000 is about 40DM billion (IDM to SNZI.IO). This works out to a staggering DM66,666 for each inhabitant. Local concerns aside, the Stuttgart Wine Festival is a truly open affair, and not just because everyone can join in. Indeed, it is exposed to the blue skies and grey

clouds (as the case may be), although the best time to capture the festive air is when the stars come out. Stalls, about 30 of them, crowd into an area half the size of a soccer field. Conditions are, however, strictly sardine-like. And just as well since no-one who has done his or her respectable share of celebration would be able to manoeuvre a straight line. Wines from the surroundings of Stuttgart, including Baden and Wurttemberg, are very good indeed. They are mostly dry, with some quite bone-dry. There is, of course, a

popular belief that German wines are sweet. Try suggesting this to any German living around the Black Forest region (including Stuttgart), and you find the conversation very quickly turning sour.

As with the observation on beer, the same South German dismissed, “they drink sweet wines in the North.” Indeed in Franken or Franconia (north-east of West Germany), the wines are renowned for being bone-dry. Some can be positively tart, and even as you gulp the liquid, you feel your mouth drained of all moisture. Well-made Franken wines are some of West Germany’s very best. They are usually put into 700 ml bottles the shape of which is identical to that of the popular Mateus Rose. But back to the Stuttgart Wine Festival. One of the most widely planted grapes in Wurttemberg is the Trollinger. Indeed, it is grown nowhere else in Germany. The Trollinger yields a light red wine; thin, acidic, arid rather frivolously fruity. I drank very little of the Trollinger.

The same cannot be said of the dedication shown to the white wines. They were delicious! These possessed a freshness that could have easily rivalled the crisp Stuttgart evening. This was evident even in an ’B3 Wurttemberg Riesling from Fleiner Kirchenweinberg. Dry, almost bone-dry, the straw gold vintage revealed a spicy fruit that

was at the same time crisp. Most invigorating, and not unlike the way they make Rieslings just across in the French side in Alsace. Then there was a Muller-Thurgau, that famous varietal developed from the Riesling and the Silvaner. Today, the hybrid is West Germany’s most widely-planted grape. An ’B4 example was medium-dry, heading towards dry. Straw gold again, the Monchberg was refreshing, deliciously fruity, and not too fragrant on the nose as MullerThurgaus can be. The last wine tasted

was also the best, a Gewurztraminer Auslese. Under West German wine laws, a wine labelled Auslese can only be made from select and late pickings, from which other unripe grapes must be discarded. Altenberg’s ’B3 Gewurztraminer Auslese, fullbodied and with the complexion of a gold ingot, was only medium-sweet. A seductive, bitter, burnt honey had set in, cutting into the perfume of the Gewurztraminer and releasing a drink of quite splendid balance. The same cannot be said of my walk back the hotel. . ■