I have a case of samples, eight dry wines and four “sweet” wines. All Rieslings, though I do miss the Pinot Blanc. This is a grower of special consequence in my view, as opposed to just-another-excellent estate. Coincidentally, I’m tasting these yet again when our backyard crabapple tree is a day or two from blooming. It isn’t on purpose, but sems to be a sort of kismet I’m willing to believe isn’t random. As my half-sister Rhonda likes to say, “Coincidence is how God pres

A friend arrived for dinner bearing two wines he wanted me to taste blind. He said he was curious to know what I’d think of them, which told me these were not just random wines, but that they were noteworthy in some way. One was white, the other red. The white wine first struck me as an ambitious Aligoté. It was coarse and disjointed; if it were a car it would have had rattles and dings. I couldn’t guess where it was from. It had no particular signature. I drank it again

If the best idea is held in the tenderest hand, these Champagnes couldn’t possibly be more convincing. I was reading a catalogue for a retreat center offering various wellness/vedic/meditation/spirituality stuff, and at the end they printed a letter from a “satisfied customer” that gave me a feeling adjacent to an ice cream headache. The luckless author of said document made reference to “walking mindfully” or some such thing. I was surprised, because I couldn’t fathom how

Andi means to send me samples; he’s just busy and forgets. So it’s been a few years, and because of that he sent me what amounts to (mostly) a vertical collection of his two GGs, rather than the current assortment in its entirety. It would be churlish to complain, but those are highly interesting wines I’ve sometimes found to be closer-in to the soul of the domain. Should you be wondering, those wines include a Muschelkalk Trocken, an Oestricher Doosberg Scharfenstein (a ca