Riesling Road Trip: Day 3 – The Importance of Refreshment

I was running, as I try to do every morning, and suddenly there it was with nothing else visible to the horizon. The eternal window-shopper in me liked the look of what he saw displayed in the ‘Prada Store’ just outside Marfa/Texas, so I stepped inside and Bingo! There was a great range of German Rieslings. We’s already run out of the 2008 Riesling Kabinett from Emrich-Schönleber in the Nahe (great freshness and balance!) and this being great Kabinett-weather I decided to grab a bottle. The photograph above shows me leaving the store with my purchase with that special high only successful shoppers experience. If only every neighborhood grocery store in America was like this place!

Much had already happened by then though. For starters my feelings about our Little White Whale – a white GM Suburban in which the Riesling Road Trip team travels while our roadies pull our Great Riesling Whale (the mobile tasting room) with a yet more powerful vehicle – had undergone a transformation while I spent the night in her belly on the long overnight drive from Phoenix/Arizona to Western Texas. A generous portion of excellent pizza from Pizzeria Bianco (the pistachio and herb pizza was a revelation) in Phoenix helped me get some sleep en route, and when I awoke at 7am I’d bonded with this huge hunk of metal from Detroit in a way I’d never have thought possible. I mean, I’m not the car guy.

After experiencing some serious loathing (though absolutely no fear) in Las Vegas I was glad to get out of the luxury hell hole which is the Wynn hotel, and after being incarcerated in it the five and a half hour drive to Phoenix/Arizona was positively relaxing. On the way we stopped for some great cherry pie (pictured) at a roadhouse in the desert after which Chris Miller, the somm of Spago Beverley Hills gave me an illuminating lecture on American pie and all the things which BBQ can mean in this country (prep for Texas and Beyond).

That kept me in high spirits until we pulled into Sportsman’s, a wine store and café that would be something special in LA or New York Wine City (NYWC) never mind Phoenix. Inside the store there was not only a great wine atmosphere, but also ideal temperatures for storing the stock and keeping us cool. Then like madmen we stepped out into the afternoon and into our Great Riesling Whale for our tasting gig and the hundred plus (41-2° C) heat hit us like a wall of fire.

The amazing thing was how well some of the wines, most particularly the regular dry Rieslings from Louis Guntrum (2011), the regular medium-sweet Riesling from Schloss Reinhartshasuen (the still fresh 2008) from the Rheingau and the Riesling Kabinett halbtrocken from Dr. Deinhard in the Pfalz (2011) showed beautifully. It was test-to-destruction, except that these moderately-priced German Rieslings came thru the ultimate stress test with flying colors and refreshed us. Château Lafite would have tasted like a cocktail of burnt vegetable soup and blackcurrant jam under those conditions!

We almost got fried ourselves, so as soon as the tasting was over we ran for cover in Sportsman’s where an impromptu tasting of American beers developed. First Chris introduced the Riesling Road Trip team and I to some of his favorites, of which I really dug the intensely hoppy IPA from Dogfish Head in Gaittersburg/Marylandalthough it was a little on the rich side to drink a whole bottle of. Then the Sportsman’s staff made some suggestions which included the ‘Matilda’ Belgian Style Pale Ale’ (pictured above) from Goose Island in Chicago/Illinois which turned out to be one of the best beers I’ve ever tasted. There was a fascinating dried orange peel aroma, was pleasantly hoppy without being hard core, and wonderfully refreshing. I feel sure that its 7% alcoholic content – moderate in the high-end American micro-brew context was helped give it its brightness of flavor. With beer as with wine balance and freshness are at least as important as character.