“September starts in the embers of summer with St Giles’s Day, which is almost always an excuse for champagne. In this instance it was the new Cuvée Essentiel from Piper Heidsieck which was a lovely surprise. Piper have not perhaps done themselves any favours in recent years, but this winewas a breakthrough, with great length and vigour. Let us hope it gives me some of the same to see me through the months to come.”
A few days later the oyster season opened with the annual shucking match which determines which British oyster shuckers (to be honest, not many are British) will go through to the European heats. I must say that it is always a good occasion to see some cherished old friends and eat a few natives (molluscs that is). British contestants are not always at an advantage in this challenge because our consumption of oysters is tiny compared to France, say. Outside Parisian brasseries there are teams of men who do nothing else all day other than shuck oysters.
A few days later I made my first contact with some of the German stars of 2016 at the Justerini & Brooks tasting at the Caledonian Club. The growers seemed very happy with the harvest, but quantities are minute. August Kesseler was showing his 2015 Pinot Noirs: the best red wine vintage for several years. Their top wine that day was a magnificent Höllenberg made from seventy year old vines. There were also excellent things from their vineyards in Lorch. More excellent 2015 reds came from Paul Fürst in Franconia. The wines are perhaps a touch more elegant than Kesseler’s, and they are far less ready. Here the top wine was the Hunsrück, but I would expect the Centgrafenberg to catch up. More reds were on show from Julian Huber who seems to have stepped very ably into the shoes of his late lamented father Bernhard. My desert island wine here would be the 2015 Schlossberg with its faint whiff of tobacco.
The Rheingau grower Robert Weil is always a safe place to start a Riesling tasting: he rarely disappoints. The 2016s were a triumph – not just the top, dry Grosses Gewächs from the Gräfenberg, but also the Spätlese and Auslese from the same vineyard. You don’t always see these sweeter styles, not in Germany anyway because they are not favoured by the top growers’ association, the VDP, but J & Bs customers are still cut and dried in the old way and they appreciate traditional German wines. The lyrical Weil Auslese was made entirely without botrytis this year: the growers in the Rheingau having benefitted from a good, warm, dry November and no rot. The result is a haunting aroma of fresh apricots. Josef Spreizer is another Rheingau grower who is always a treat. The best of his 2016s was the Grosses Gewächs from the Hattenheimer Wisselbrunnen again with a wonderful aroma of fresh apricots.
Another grower you learn to approach on your knees is Helmut Dönnhoff, although the wines are now chiefly made by his son Cornelius. There was a beautifully structured Hermannshöhle, but once again the sweeter styles came to the fore, Spätlesen from Niederhäuser Brücke and Hermannshöhle, the latter with a gorgeous taste of gooseberries. Gooseberries again dominated on the best wine from Emmerich Schönleber, the Spätlese from the Halenberg.
Carl von Schubert was there with his Maximin Grünhaus wines from the Ruwer. I had not tasted his light, red Pinot Noir before. He has been making it since 2010. Again the stars here were the traditional Spätlesen: the Herrenberg and the Abtsberg and the delicious Herrenberg Eiswein. From the Saar Hanno Zilliken’s top wine was the Saarburger Rausch Spätlese, but he warned me there was very little to sell. Fritz Haag in the Mosel itself is another place of pilgrimage for German wine lovers. His best wines come from the Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr (these lucky sundial vineyards see the sun all day long). Once again a long growing season allowed Haag to make exemplary Kabinetts and Spätlesen. There was even a bit of top-notch Goldkapsel; and then the immortal JJ Prüm. This tasting is one of the few where you get the chance to taste Prüm’s wines. They are famously challenging before they are six years old, but this time I thought I managed to get a perch on them. The Graacher Himmelreich and Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spätlesen and Auslesen were wonderful. If I were forced to choose one it would probably be the Himmelreich Auslese.
Willi Schaefer also has his vineyards in Graach, in the Domprobst vineyard. Here the Kabinett and Spätlese both promised superb wines in years to come. Finally from the Mosel there was Thomas Haag at Schloss Lieser. These were the hardest wines to assess this year, harder than Prüm as the noses were dominated by sulphur. He has spread his wings, and got a bit of the famous Doctor, as well as some Piesporter Goldtröpfen. The wine that stood out for me, however, was the Kabinett from Graacher Himmelreich.
Lastly, two wines from outside the main drag: from Battenfeld-Spanier in Rheinhessen was a lovely, complex 2016 Am Schwarzen Herrgott and from Rebholz in the Southern Pfalz, a Pinot Noir Grosses Gewächs 2015: a real return to form.
I spent much of the second half of September away in Germany and France. In Germany I was at a conference in North Hesse, a region with no wine, only rolling hills and dense woods and quite a few sheep – a novelty for me in Germany. Above the house where I was staying a biodynamic farmer cultivated potatoes with the help of three dray horses. He also grew interesting herbs, and was part of a network of biodynamic farmers that sold their wares all over Germany. The farmer offered three sorts of potatoes, something for every occasion. Since Frederick the Great’s time, German rustics have eaten a simple supper of potatoes in their skins and fresh curds. The latter may be flavoured, and we even had the sophistication of Goethe’s famous ‘green sauce’. Otherwise potatoes thicken soup: pumpkin soup or plain potato soup, which can be a delight.
Bread is the other great German staple. The country doesn’t go in for tempting soft, white breads like baguettes, but makes good solid loaves from wheat and rye which are as delicious as they are nourishing. One of the moments we all looked forward to was the coffee break when there were trays of Streusel and Pflaumenkuchen (crumble and plum crumble cake). There was even a regional Schmandkuchen with soured cream.
Of course Provence was somewhat different. We missed Boris the Boar this year but we had a fine celebration as one of our brethren, Professor Mahen Varma, was given the OBE so that meant a special dinner and lots of champagne. We went out a bit more than usual; to a new place in an old garage in Bedoin called Chez Léon where they have adopted the ‘cave à manger’ style with small plates and a good range of wines. There were a few funny products such as sardines in tins, lovely Iberico hams, squid and excellent black pudding with a puree of potatoes. The cheeses looked good too. On our last night we went to Le Four à Chaux near Caromb and had a lovely meal: a little pea soup as an appetizer, courgette flowers stuffed with crab and little cake of dried cod brandade on the side, pungent lamb rack flavoured with thyme accompanied by local vegetables and a cake of goats’ cheese wrapped in bacon, a disappointing selection of non-local cheeses (the alternative was a crottin from the Loire!) and a lovely almond bavaroise with peach ‘scales’ – except that the peaches were nectarines and they were unripe. It was still a delicious meal and a special treat.
For the rest of my time I visited my favourite green fig tree and sopped up the last rays of the summer sun.
