I have to say Spain was great except for when I got locked into a public toilet in San Sebastián and the police had to be called to spring me loose. It began innocently enough; Karen had used the thing and held the door open for me to follow, but as I was standing over the bowl and starting to whizz I was suddenly sprayed with a cleaning material from nozzles in the ceiling, so I jumped back and had a moment of “WTF” and then the floor nozzles opened up and sprayed my shoes,

Of course, it being Nikolaihof there will be a panoply of vintages, many of them old or at least mature. This was the best culling among the wines I tasted at the estate five months ago, as this is an estate where gazing forward makes more sense than looking backward. That is, for the wines as such. The estate retains its dignity and gravitas, but in recent years some wines slipped out of the cradle, and one never knew how things would be. This problem is most of the way to

They are scant in number, and Christoph seemed apologetic at the paucity of high-Prädikat wines.   By now the entire 2024 vintage from Schaefer is on the market, so I know I am out-of-date, but I felt it best to wait – these are the last samples from the bunch I received many months ago – in order to give the wines a chance to calm down. I have come to a wariness with 2023, both in Germany and Austria, and often find it a troubled vintage whose nature can be exacerbated by 

As you may have gleaned, I’m a guy with views. Some of them are irritable, others are approving. A few are both.   Here’s an example....