Two Bottles Forgeurac
We drink two bottles of Baden Landwein from the Forgeurac winery: the Weissburgunder Baden from 2018 and the Pinot Noir Steinsatz 2017.
As last weeks wine actually came from france, this time it just sounds like they do. The Forgeurac winery is located north of Karlsruhe near Walldorf in an old smith building. Hence the name. The vineyards from which the grapes for the wines of Uwe Lange and Marco Pfliehinger come from are somewhat more scattered. For example, there are vineyards in the Bühlertal, in Rauenberg, and grapes for white wines are also bought from an organic winemaker from the Palatinate. We have two wines from Baden in our glasses: Baden 2018, a pure Pinot Blanc, and Pinot Noir Steinsatz from 2017. The winery works ecologically, everything is handmade, no fining, no filtration, everything fermented spontaneously, everything matured in used wooden barrels, nothing in, nothing out, natural wine.
You can smell this immediately in the Baden Weiß: apple peel and a little smoked bacon for the first few seconds, then almost nothing. Cool in the mouth, without frills and with lots of structure. Little to hardly any fruit, yet very juicy. But it should not be quite so warm at the moment, because then you can feel the 13.5% a bit. This is probably due to the vintage. Over the course of the evening, the Pinot Blanc becomes creamier and creamier and the association with yellow aromas becomes stronger, even if there is no real fruit to be seen. It is not that easy to capture the wine.
After a night in the fridge it remains true to itself. In the nose the apple peel, in the meantime also some fresh pome fruit and a note of yeast dough. On the tongue, fresh apple has also arrived, along with the cool structure and a note of citrus. The alcohol is better integrated than on the first evening and like this the wine is a lot of fun.
The Steinreich starts with cherries in the nose, with cloves, some cinnamon and liquorice. But it remains cool, elegant and also a bit distant. On the tongue still relatively much tannin, in between a sweet, at times almost artificial cherry and at the same time a great length. What remains on the tongue is no longer artificial at all, but spicy, tart cherry fruit. Feels very young and somewhat unsorted. The wine retains its coolness and elegance throughout the evening. But it becomes more earthy, spicy and at the same time the tannin integrates better and feels softer.
Due to lack of space, the bottle spent the night outside the fridge. And even a day later the structured tannin, which gives the wine a lot of grip, is a great pleasure. The cherry, almost artificial at the beginning, has disappeared, but there is more spice, a few baked plums and dark berries. With pasta with bacon, chilli and tomatoes the fruit shines. At the moment the wine is a great accompaniment to food, but it also fits well after the meal.