Gutsriesling and a Weekendvacation
A story of food and beverages at Lake Constance, of sunsets, missed photo opportunities and ending the weekend with a 2015 Gutsriesling from Christmann.
At the beginning of the year, after New Year and January 6th, public holidays are a rarely seen species and if then Easter slides back as far as this year, it feels especially tragic. The memory of more than two days off in one week slowly fades and urgently needed to be refreshed. What could be more obvious than spontaneously booking a long weekend at Lake Constance at half past midnight? I can’t think of much.
Said, done and off to the swabian sea. Actually the plan was to use the wine menu in the restaurant to bring the article to the next level with fancy food and wine pictures. But somehow that didn’t really work out and there is simply not a single picture of dinner.
A pity, because we had a great matured Ex Vero I as a late bottling from 2008. Quite an experience with the chocolate mousse dessert to bring the evening to a close. The menu also included soup with smoked eel and roulades. I really should have taken pictures. Apart from that this is the place where we had our first contact with liquors of Christoph Keller’s Stählemühle a few years ago. Since he has now stopped making them and the small pharmacist’s bottles always have been quite pricey anyway, the opportunity was wonderful to have during a Lake Constance vacation not only the first, but probably also the last glass of Stählemühle. Good stuff nonetheless.
But not everything must be reconstructed from memories. While on the first day a storm would have shaken the tripod, in Lindau the camera and the tripod worked wonderfully and the sunset was perfect too. Memo to myself: Blowing dust from the grey filter saves some stamping work afterwards. You cannot have everything.
Since the blog here is now supposed to be a wine blog, this was a great excuse to end the weekend on the couch at home. We wanted something fresh, not too exhausting and actually we were keen on Riesling. After the Königsbacher Ölberg a few weeks ago was a blast and another bottle of Gutsriesling in the cellar, it was not a difficult choice. So we chose a Riesling Estate Wine from the Christmann Winery in Gimmeldingen in the Palatinate from 2015. It also fitted the theme of vacation memories since our last short trip went to the Palatinate.
The wine has a really full nose for a Gutswein, with lots of tangerine and other citrus fruit and a little bit of flint. Wow! When drinking it, the crisp acidity gets to you. Nevertheless there is a certain creaminess. Unfortunately I miss a bit of depth on the palate. The punch is missing, everything is very soft. The edge only comes in the finish, but when it comes it’s really there, with minerality, long and slightly bitter on the tongue. Really lasting. Great estate Riesling and a perfect finish to the weekend.