Hello. Who is even reading this?

Recently I stumbled upon a serious problem in my wine drinking and subsequentially purchasing habits and decisions. I buy too much Riesling, I drink too much Riesling, and now I don’t want it anymore. Well this might not be sooo true but I did grow tired of it. I own some, roughly, 50 bottles, 30 of them are Riesling. The other 20 are made up of mostly red wines that are too young to drink or would require some big meal preparations, and sweet wines from some other grape than Riesling that are like Syrup. Not great drinking experiences for a nice summer evening or a get together with friends, at least not in a casual way. So recently I stood infront of my two shelves that I have packed all my wines into and noticed a deep lack in variety. I wanted a white wine, not a high acidity or sweet wine which would have a chance of dissolving my remaining teeth, but something super light and easy going, fresh, vibrant, maybe fruity. I had a few bottles of white wine that weren’t Riesling, but guess what, they also did not fit the bill. Now I had to make do with something that I really did not want to enjoy but I had to anyways.

Phillip Kuhn – Laumersheimer Steinbuckelt Pinot Noir GG 2018

100% Pinot Noir, but the style determined this to be a wine I would not enjoy drinking if it was hot and humid. It was a GG, a top of the line, german, dry wine with lots of structure, character and complexity, which is almost always determined to be aged for at least 5 years. This one was aged for 6 so at least it had that going for it, but the vintage, 2018, is notorious for being so massively hot and ripe that many winemakers called it overly succesfull. Many wineries in germany produced overripe fruit in quantities that were almost so massive that they could not be worked with anymore, the grapes were mostly acid-less, overly sweet and jammy and would not be suitable for any wine production in a normal year or harvest. Every single grape was like that in germany. Great for the producers because they could sell so much, not so great for the consumers because wines without acidity meant wines without a lot of structure. And this wine, my Pinot Noir GG from 2018, was such a perfect representation of this vintage that it was almost fun again. On the nose there were some very dimm strawberries, but there was more dust and more forrest floor, it wasn’t as fruity as many other Pinot GGs are when they are ‚young‘ (2017 and 2019 spring to mind), it felt more akin to a somewhat jammy Pinot Noir from Alto Adige that was harvested just a bit too late to be enjoyed. On the palate there were some tannins that were decently well integrated and balanced with their own presence, there was some more fruit and then some dust and stuff, I guess. Just as I predicted this wine had a certain lack in acidity, not in a noticeably terrible way, but it was just a tad too much to be fully ignored. The bad sentiment carried me through this wine and eventually it was quite enjoyable. In conclusion this wine had everything it needed to be drunk, but nothing to be had again. It wasn’t bad in any wine but it wasn’t interesting enough to warrant wanting it again. It is good enough but a perfect representation of what the vintage has always been.

And now? What do I do about my problem? I guess it’s simple, buy no more Riesling, should be easy, no? Yeah, should be. But I bought 6 bottles right the week after I faced this problem for the first time. Ooops….

Currently I am actually working on trying to figure out a new wine destination that I want to explore and learn about; Portugal, the goal is to write an essay about it that is informed enough to upload it to the general proximity of the internet, and that others could maybe gain something from. I’ll try my best and update whenever I learn something interesting. Cheers for Now!