Wine of the Month January 2011

2009 Grüner Silvaner trocken „S“

Weingut Espenhof

€ 6,90

I keep repeating that decent German wine begins at 2,50 Euro a bottle direct from the producer and get a lot of flack for this from winelovers, many of whom tell me the minimum ought to be 5 Euros. I stick by my figure, though I have to point out that I’m talking about everyday quaffing wine grown in flat vineyards with generous yields and entirely mechanical cultivation, then purchased direct from the grower. For 5 or more Euros the bottle you ought to to get a wine which isn’t just clean and harmonious, but also has substance, character and energy, like Nico Espenschied’s dry 2009 Grüner Silvaner „S“. It was the first vintage in which he made the wines in the cellar of his family’s estate and Nico has good reason to smile, because this is only one of a row of excellent dry whites he made in 2009 ! You can see Nico at the famous Geisenheim wine school, where I got to know him in late 2008, in the 5^th episode of WEINWUNDER DEUTSCHLAND my TV series about German wine at 16:30 Central European Time on Sunday, 2^nd January in the BR3 channel or from that time onwards at www.br-online.de