Mosel Fine Wines “The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling”

By Jean Fisch and David Rayer

Sekt – The Sparkling Joy of Riesling Mosel Perspective: Let’s Talk About Sekt – The Sparkling Joy of Riesling

Sekt has a long tradition in Germany going back to the 18th century. The Germans crave for sparkling wine and drink more of it than any other nation. Riesling, with its acidity, is ideal for crisp and lively wines. So why is Sekt not all the rage internationally? Or is it about to happen?

In this background article, we provide everything you ever wanted to know about Sekt but were too afraid to ask. We show how the specific historic and economic context led to the almost ruin of the German Sekt and how, in modern days, new enterprising and independent Sekt producers have emerged, pushing the boundaries of quality.

We also provide the probably most comprehensive review of (Mosel) Sekt ever undertaken, with over 60 Sekt sampled over the last few weeks. There is quite some good Sekt out there, as you will read, and not only from the Mosel as you will see! Last but least, the vast majority of the Sekt on offer will not break the bank. After the dry wine revolution, we are convinced that a Sekt movement will soon follow suit.

www.moselfinewines.com page 55 Issue No 30 - March 2016

Mosel Fine Wines “The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling”

By Jean Fisch and David Rayer

Sekt – A Roller-Coaster History Driven by Huge National Demand

A FUNNY STORY TO START WITH : WHERE DOES THE WORD SEKT COME FROM ?

Sekt stands for sparkling wine in German. If you now expect the word Sekt to be derived from some noble Celtic goddess of joy, you are probably wrong, if legend is to be believed. Its origin seems to be … English! The name is said to be derived from Sack, to be precise , the English term to describe the sweet sherry which was the rage in the 17th and 18th centuries in Britain. There is even a precise “invention date” linked to the word Sekt.

How come? The story goes that, around 1825, the then well-known actor Ludwig Devrient was playing Sir John Falstaf f in Shakespeare’s Henri IV at the Berlin Theatre. In this piece, Sir John famou sly asks “Give me a cup of sack, boy” (Part 1, Act 2, Scene 4). For some obscure reason, this had been erroneously translated as “Bring er mir Sect, Schurke ” in German .

The actor was said to be a regular at a well-known Berlin tavern of the day and a member of a little circle of intellectuals known to overindulge the latest craze: the fizzy wines of Champagne. Ludwig Devrient is said to have shouted to the Inn owner “Bring er mir Sect, Schurke ” one evening (our guess is that this did not happen at the beg inning of the evening … but this is purely speculative). Not knowing what he meant , the tavern owner simply brought him his regular, i.e. sparkling Champagne.

The name was born (and if the story is not true, it is so good that it ought to be!).

SEKT HAS A LONG TRADITION … GOING BACK TO THE 18 TH AND 19 TH CENTURIES !

The history of sparkling wine in Germany goes back earlier than the beginning of the 19th century. There are numerous records of German noble families having tests with wine (re)fermenting in the bottle, as was done in Champagne, already in the 18th century.

This should not come as a surprise. There were close merchant ties between the two countries. In fact, many of the Champagne houses have German or Lorraine origins. We only want to mention Krug, Roederer or Mumm.

However, the process of disgorgement invented in Champagne and which was key to stabilize the production of sparkling wine was a pretty well guarded secret. Much of what was produced in Germany in the 18th century was “hand -made”, artisanal and included numerous stories of injuries as bottles simply exploded.

It is only after France annexed part of today’s Germany after the Napoleonic wars that the production of Sekt started in earnest in Germany. This came at the hand of Germans, who went to Champagne where they learned the trade at the big houses (notably at Veuve Clicquot) before coming back and set up shop in their home regions.

German production of sparkling wines dates back to 1826, when Georg Christian Kessler (1787 –1842), a businessman from the Württemberg region who had worked at the Champagne house Veuve Clicquot from 1807 to 1826, founded his own G. C. Kessler & Co. winery in Esslingen am Neckar.

Sekt in the Mosel started about a decade later, in 1836, again at the hands of a former employee of Veuve Clicquot.

GERMAN SEKT | A HIGHLY REGARDED AND HIGHLY PRICED WINE

In a matter of 20 years, from 1830 to 1850, Sekt wineries popped up throughout Germany. These include some of the big names still active today, including Kupferberg, Söhnlein, Henkell, Rotkäppchen, Deinhard, etc.

These Sekt wineries rapidly grew to huge operations as the German public immediately fell in love with Sekt. By 1911, there were 12 million bottles of Sekt produced in Germany (compared to 28 million bottles at the same time in Champagne).

This love of Sekt continues to this day, as the average German consumes a massive 4 bottles of Sekt per year (elderly and infants included!). The DWI, the German Wine Institute, reckons that every fifth bottle of sparkling wine opened in the world is done so in Germany!

www.moselfinewines.com page 56 Issue No 30 - March 2016

Mosel Fine Wines “The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling”

By Jean Fisch and David Rayer

Despite its popularity, Sekt was far from being a lowly product. Price lists from around 1900 shows that Sekt was highly appreciated throughout the world. It was priced as much as that of the leading brands of Champagne of the day in the US and still about half the price of Champagne in Germany (where Champagne faced the additional costs of import and duties). The German public loved their Sekt and were ready to pay for it.

Inland dem and was so robust that Sekt even got the ultimate accolade: Its very own special tax, introduced in 1902 … to finance the imp erial war fleet. Ironically (or was it to be expected?), this tax still exists today and is not unsubstantial: Every bottle of sparkling wine sold in Germany is taxed with €1.02 per bottle (however, we can reassure our readers here: the proceeds are no longer purpose bound).

THE MOSEL (IN PARTICULAR THE SAAR ) WAS A MAJOR PROVIDER OF BASE WINE FOR SEKT

The cooler Mosel, with its higher acidity and often unripe vintages, was predestined for the production of Sekt. Planting expanded hugely, in particular in the cooler Saar, after the 1880s as major houses set up shop and started the production of Sekt.

One of the most iconic developments was that of Johann Heinrich Wagner, the great-grandfather of Christiane Wagner of Weingut Dr. Wagner in Saarburg. He cleared a massive 12 ha area for winemaking (Schloss Saarfels) and built a huge cellar with its dedicated railway station (much as in Champagne) to provide the country with Wagner Saar wines.

But other grandees of the period were doing the same thing. The highly regarded von Schorlemer Estate built a new winemaking Estate in Serrig (today Weingut Dr. Siemens), with over 15 ha of vineyards to supply Sekt houses, in particular the Kupferberg winery.

Sekt was hip and consumers were ready to pay for it: Investments followed as if there was no tomorrow.

UNFORTUNATELY , SEKT BECAME A LOW END SWEET SPARKLER IN THE 1950 S-1960 S

After World War II, the Sekt industry took unfortunately a turn for the worse. The insatiable demand for sparkling wine paired with the love of anything sweet led to the development of cheaper methods for producing Sekt. In addition, next to Deutscher Sekt (which can only be made from German wine), a category simply called Sekt was introduced, which could be produced from any imported wine.

Innovation in the production of sparkling wine, in particular the production in large tanks (called transfer method) transformed Sekt from an aspirational quality product at the turn of the 20th century into a synonym for cheap bubbling plonk by the 1970s. The big names of around the century expanded their production and drastically lowered their prices in a battle to win the price-point war at the national supermarkets.

Just to give you an idea of the abysmal hole in which Sekt has fallen: During the Holidays season 2015, there were special offers for these mass- marketed Sekt for €2.49 per bottle in some German supermarkets … and remember, this price includes €1.02 Sekt tax, the price of bottle and cork and logistics!

A RENOUVEAU AS WINZERSEKT AS OF THE 1970 S

This drift towards “cheap and not so cheerful ” was also aided by the fact that the production of Sekt was tightly regulated by the State. Over the years, an almost monopoly situation had been created around a few large mass-market Sekt wineries. It is only after a court rule put an end to this monopoly in 1976 that Germany saw a quality-minded Sekt industry being reborn under the banner of Winzersekt, which would be the equivalent of the Grower Champagne.

Throughout Germany, different small-scale wineries were set up with the objective of producing quality Sekt made from German grapes and wines. This is the time at which for instance the Solter winery was set up in the Rheingau, which handles the Sekt for many of the leading Estates of the region. www.moselfinewines.com page 57 Issue No 30 - March 2016

Mosel Fine Wines “The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling”

By Jean Fisch and David Rayer

Also in the Mosel, many of the today leading Sekt wineries were set up at the time. This includes Nalbach, who set up a winery in Reil together with Melsheimer (Weingut Melsheimer) and Heiner Immich (Weingut Immich-Anker). It also includes Klaus Herres / St. Laurentius in Leiwen and, soon thereafter, Bernhard Kirsten in Klüsserath.

Ironically, the development of these wineries and Sekt in general was facilitated by the demand decrease for (sweet) German wines by the late 1970s and the huge harvests of 1982 and 1983. This gave many growers the impulse to develop new sales opportunities and gave the burgeoning Sekt wineries the necessary access to good raw materials for producing Sekt.

One of the largest developments of the period in the Mosel was the Saar-Mosel-Winzersekt winery in Trier set up under the leadership of Adolf Schmitt, who is still firmly overseeing things here today. In 1983, together with a series of winemakers, among whom Peter Lauer and Dirk Richter, he took over the bankrupt facilities of the former Joh. Förster Estate to set up an independent Sekt winery, which would produce its own Sekt but also handle the Sekt production (so the second fermentation, remuage and disgorgement) for others, including its associates.

Learning the art of making sparkling wine was not always a smooth affair, as Klaus Herres from the St. Laurentius winery in Leiwen remembers vividly : “ When I started in 1982, I was a bit apprehensive at first that the second fermentation would not start swiftly enough. So I was quite generous with the yeasts in the liqueur de tirage. Two days later, when I came home from a local feast, my mother was already standing at the door, frantically waving her arms. That night, at regular intervals, there was a little blast as, one by one, the bottles exploded under the pressure. As this went on for hours, we started to pray and it seems that our prayers were heard because we managed to save one third of the bottles. This led us to rename our Estate after the local patron, St. Laurentius.”

These pioneers eventually got their game together and developed the notion of Quality Sekt. Besides producing Sekt which they would commercialize themselves, most of these wineries also started to offer the “ Versektung ” (an untranslatable German word meaning the process of transforming base wine into sparkling wine) as a service to makers who wanted to offer Sekt in their portfolio but did not want or could not afford to invest into the necessary equipment and space.

Today, most leading producers in Germany – not only in the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer – have one or several Sekt in its portfolio. However, the Versektung is often outsourced to one of the Sekt specialists, often from one of the names we mention in this article. In principle, these Sekt specialists may carry out all or part of the Versektung activities, i.e. bottling for second fermentation with some liqueur de tirage , the remuage, the disgorgement and bottling with or without a dosage with a liqueur d’expédition . Some makers, among which Dr. Wagner or Dr. Stephan Reuter in the Saar carry out most of the Sekt production activities themselves, except for the last one, the disgorgement.

Another major milestone in the development of Sekt was taken by the Raumland winery. It too found has its origins in the 1980s, when Volker Raumland started a busi ness of “Versektung” for others after having completed his winemaking studies. His talents were soon noted by many national and internationally well-known makers and quickly counted over 100 Estates among his clients. A decisive step was taken after he was able to set up his own Estate in 1990. He focused his Sekt production mainly on Pinot Noir, as well as some Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier, i.e. on grape varieties usually used in Champagne. He was a pioneer in perfecting the grape quality for Sekt : “ I only rely on the best juice from clean grapes harvested early. I take great care not to smash or break up the grapes so I harvest them manually in small buckets and keep them whole with the stems. As we often harvest early in September I also introduced a system to cool them down overnight before pressing them early the next morning.” Widely regarded as one if the not the finest producer of Sekt in Germany, his Sekt have already received what must be the ultimate accolade: being served at the table of the French government at the Elysée Palace!

A further step on the quest for quality Sekt was taken recently when the Weingut Reichsrat von Buhl hired Mathieu Kauffmann, the former winemaker of Bollinger, among others to improve its Sekt portfolio. You may ask what brings a French winemaker, from one of the most prestigious houses in Champagne, to relocate to “the German province. “ The love of Riesling ” was his answer. This is still early days but we can be sure that this will help German Sekt reach new heights and increased recognition.

www.moselfinewines.com page 58 Issue No 30 - March 2016

Mosel Fine Wines “The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling”

By Jean Fisch and David Rayer

The great thing about this Sekt Renouveau movement is that it was firmly done under the banner of quality winemaking. These are not made on industrial scale to meet price-point hungry Supermarket shelves. These are “Grower Champagne” like sparkling wines, made with selected grapes, which undergo their secondary fermentation using the traditional method invented in Champagne. These wines are often left on their lees for months if not years before being disgorged.

So, although a lot has already been achieved since the explosive experiments of the 1980s, we cannot help thinking that there is more to be expected from German Sekt in the future! Sekt Today – Quality Sparkling Wine … For Whoever Can be Patient !

MUCH SEKT UNDER THE GERMAN SUN

As always in Germany, labelling is on the one side often painfully precise yet at the same time prone to create confusion. Here a little guide to help you navigate through the different names you may encounter on labels.

The Sekt we are dealing with in this article are all labelled at least Deutscher Sekt , which means that it is made from German grapes only and often carry the name of a single region (Mosel, Rheingau, etc.). Some of these Sekt can also carry the name Winzersekt , which then means that it needs to have been produced from own grapes using the Méthode Traditionnelle (you could see parallels with the Grower Champagne / Récoltant- Manipulateur in the Champagne region). Finally, you may see some of the sparkling wines called Crémant , which refer to Sekt made using the Méthode Traditionnelle but aged for at least 12 months on its lees (the Méthode Traditionelle only requires a minimum of 9 months).

Some of the Sekt will also carry the denomination Traditionnelle Flaschengärung , this is nothing but the German translation of Méthode Traditionnelle as used in Champagne. Some Sekt may also carry the additional wording Handgerüttelt , which means that the remuage before disgorgement was done by hand and not on Gyropalette.

Sweetness styles of Sekt follows the EU-wide guidelines and denominations and range from Brut Nature (less than 3 g/l of dosage) to Doux (over 50 g/l of dosage). Some Sekt can have a much higher acidity than say Champagne. The feeling of dryness is therefore often higher in German Sekt, in particular if made from Riesling and coming from the Mosel!

In addition to these legal denominations, winemakers regularly use the denomination Zéro Dosage to indicate that the Sekt was bottled without any liqueur d’expédition after disgorgement. While this denomination does give in principle no indication on the total residual sugar in the Sekt (this depends on the base wine and the sugar added for the second fermentation), it is usually used in practice in combination with Brut or Extra-Brut, and often has the same delicious backwardness than Brut Nature (certainly in the context of the naturally higher acidity in Mosel wines).

Here is a summary table:

Denomination Method Style

Sekt: Any grape (usually from imported Flaschengärung: made using the transfer Brut Nature: 0-3 g/l ones) method (second fermentation in bottle but disgorgement in tank using pressure Extra-Brut : 0-6 g/l Deutscher Sekt: Only German grapes filters). Brut : 0-12 g/l Deutscher Sekt b.A.: Sekt from a single Traditionnelle Flaschengärung: made region (e.g . Mosel, Rheingau, …) using the traditional method (second Extra-Dry : 12-17 g/l fermentation in the bottle and Winzersekt : Sekt own grapes using the disgorgement in the bottle). Sec / Dry : 17-32 g/l traditional method Handgeruttelt: Remuage done by hand Demi-Sec / Medium-Dry : 32-50 g/l Crémant: Sekt from a single region made using the traditional method and aged Doux : >50 g/l for a minimum of 12 months on its lees

www.moselfinewines.com page 59 Issue No 30 - March 2016

Mosel Fine Wines “The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling”

By Jean Fisch and David Rayer

However, we need to draw the attention of our readers to two probably intended confusing particularities of German Sekt labelling:

§ If the bottle only says Sekt on the label (and is dead cheap!), you will typically have a sparkling wine made from imported grapes using the cheaper tank-fermentation method. This is unfortunately the bulk (90% or more) of the German market, explains some of the ridiculously low selling prices.

§ If a bottle carries the denomination Flaschengärung only, you need to be careful as this usually does not refer to a Sekt made using the Méthode Traditionnelle. A Sekt with only the word Flaschengärung on the label underwent its second fermentation in bottle, as in the Méthode Traditionelle. But its disgorgement was done using the cheaper method of filtering the Sekt using pressure (i.e. CO2) in tanks. It may come to a s urprise, but this method, known as Transfer Method, is allowed the confusing labelling “Bottle -Fermented” / “Flaschengärung” according to EU law as long as the pressure remains unchanged in the process.

One needs to be alert to the above confusing particularities of the German Sekt. However, the good news is that, now that we know them, we can forget about them because none needs to be of any concern to us and the top makers in Germany.

One last word of caution before plunging into the Sekt today and the result of our tastings: There is no link between the AP Number / Lot Number and the disgorgement date . The German law gives an AP (or Lot Number) to a wine but considers disgorgement as a “recorking.” So typically, a wine will get an AP / lot Number at the first disgorgement. Any later disgorgement, even if years later, will still carry the same AP / Lot Number. For instance the 1999er Saar-Mosel-Winzersekt Weissburgunder Dichtertraum received an AP as soon as in 2000 (here 07 00) and we tasted a bottle disgorged in 2011, and this had the original AP number.

TASTING RESULTS | HIGH QUALITY RACY WINES … OFTEN IN NEED OF BOTTLE AGING

As part of this background article, we sampled over 60 Sekt from essentially all major producers in the Mosel and Germany as a whole over the last few weeks, making this the probably biggest such review to date. Here are the key takeaways from this extensive tasting:

Indulge your Sekt! The tasting underlined the overall high quality of Sekt on offer today. There is a huge amount of very good Sekt out there and a significant number of the Sekt tasted proved outright outstanding.

Sekt Highlights

2004er Raumland Sekt Brut MonRose 94 2008 er Raumland Sekt Brut VIII. Triumvirat Grande Cuvée 94 2004er Wegeler Rheingau Riesling S ekt Brut Geheimrat “J” 01 14 93+ 2004er Raumland Sekt Brut Chardonnay 93 1990er Dr. Loosen Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Sekt Brut 01 07 92 2008er Markus Molitor Riesling Sekt Zéro Dosage Prestige 99 15 91+ 2013er von Buhl Riesling Sekt Brut 30 14 91 2011er Hofgut Falkenstein Niedermenniger Sonnenberg Riesling Sekt Brut 09 13 91 N.V. Heymann -Löwenstein Spätburgunder Sekt Blanc de Noirs 91 2007er Heymann -Löwenstein Spätburgunder Sekt Blanc de Noirs 91 2011er Kirsten Riesling Sekt Brut Held ensekt 91 2011er Melsheimer Reiler Mullay -Hofberg Riesling Sekt Extra-Brut 08 13 91 2010er Melsheimer Sekt Brut Nature Cuvée Prestige 01 16 91 2008er Markus Molitor Bernkasteler Badstube Riesling Sekt Brut Prestige 45 13 91 1990er Saar -Mosel-Winzersekt Mosel Weissburgunder Sekt Trocken Dichtertraum 07 00 91 2005er Solter Rheingau Riesling Sekt Brut Réserve 12 07 91 2013er Selbach -Oster Mosel Riesling Sekt Brut 02 15 90+ 2009er Van Volxem Riesling Sekt Brut 1900 14 12 90+ N.V. von Buhl Sekt Brut Réserve 54 15 90 2013er Hofgut Falkenstein Saar Riesling Sekt Brut 12 15 90 2011er Geltz -Zilliken Saar Riesling Sekt Brut Réserve 17 15 90 N.V. Balthasar Ress Riesling Sekt Extra-Dry 90 N.V. Dr. Stephan Reuter Saar Riesling Sekt Brut 01 14 90 N.V. Solter Sekt Brut Cuvée Henri 90 www.moselfinewines.com page 60 Issue No 30 - March 2016

Mosel Fine Wines “The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling”

By Jean Fisch and David Rayer

Many of these outstanding Sekt come from wines which have been aged extensively on their lees. The remarkable aging abilities of Riesling come clearly to play here. Also to be noted is the performance of Pinot-based Sekt, which feature very well here. However, the raciness of Riesling brings a fun side which differentiates it from any other grape makes Sekt completely different to, say, Champagne. In addition, many of these Sekt do not break the bank!

Read the l abel for style … or have a copy of the list of recommended Sekt at hand. There are essentially two types of Sekt which you will encounter: Most are essentially racy, with fresh scents of grapefruit, wet stones and herbs. The racy Sekt are made from grapes often harvested a bit earlier for freshness and usually do not have more than 11-12% of alcohol. Besides this, a series of makers also produce Sekt from fully ripe grapes, which yield wines which have more often a riper and more vinous character on top of some vivid acidity. Some may even produce Sekt without any chaptalization (Naturrein). For this, they take an off-dry Auslese as base wine and let it undergo its second fermentation with its natural sugars. These Sekt made from riper fruit often easily reach 13-13.5% of alcohol. As it is not always easy to see which Sekt is made along which style (although the alcohol level is a good indicator), we added a short introduction to the different Sekt makers, explaining their philosophy and style of Sekt, next to the tasting notes in the next section.

Do not shy away from “Dry” or “Extra -Dry” Riesling Sekt, which can be delicious and hugely versatile. Riesling Sekt Dry or Extra-Dry can prove stunningly well balanced and enjoyable in a delicately off-dry style which suits all sorts of occasions, including aperitif or picnics, much more so than what Champagne Sec may have accustomed one to. The raciness of Riesling simply gives these Sekt a balance similar to that of some Champagne Brut.

Let your (Mosel) Sekt bottles age! We typically sampled Sekt which is on offer now, which means that they were disgorged recently. One aspect we noted about Sekt, in particular from the Mosel region, is that they can be almost too much early after disgorgement. The combination of the naturally high acidity in Riesling, the slender body from slate, the tartness-bordering-austerity of any young dry Mosel Riesling combined with an exuberant mousse can make for a hugely backward cocktail which, at times, reminded us wildly of a wine equivalent of craft beer: More than Champagne, Riesling Sekt, in particular from the Mosel, hugely benefits from a few years of bottle age in order for the tartness to recede, the mousse to refine and the zesty acidity to integrate. The Sekt will still be lively, thanks to Riesling, but much more harmonious, as a few examples of Sekt disgorged for years have shown us during our tasting.

A BRIGHT FUTURE AHEAD FOR SEKT

Sekt and Riesling are a marriage made in heaven as both underline the fun, lively and zesty side of life. It is clear that quality Sekt is on the up, as Germans continue to re-appropriate their national treasures which they left sometime in the 1970s or 1980s in favor of France, Italy and Spain. The historic German thirst for Sekt will carry over onto the more high quality Sekt.

Also internationally, all growers told us that there is a growing demand for Deutscher Sekt as an increasing number of lovers of racy Champagne without dosage broaden their horizon and open up the fascinating new aromatics and terroir expressions offered by Riesling.

Last but not least, Sekt remains a bargain in the great house of sparkling wine. The vast majority of the Sekt which we sampled in the course of this article, including many of our favorite ones, do not break the bank. This is also true for late disgorged bottles, which sometimes have spent more than 10 if not 20 years on their lees, as is the case for instance at the Saar-Mosel-Winzersekt winery, which still offers sparkling wines from vintages such as 1992, 1991 and even 1990 in their portfolio.

The Sekt Renouveau initiated in the 1980s is far from over. On the contrary, it may be on an acceleration path as which large wine Estates such as von Buhl hire top winemakers from Champagne, the top wine growers in the Mosel and Germany start to pay more attention to this unique product, using their best terroir for their Sekt, and the world opens up to the unique Riesling (and not only Riesling!) expression of sparkling wine.

www.moselfinewines.com page 61 Issue No 30 - March 2016

Mosel Fine Wines “The Independent Review of Mosel Riesling”

By Jean Fisch and David Rayer

N.V. Raumland Riesling Sekt Brut 89+

The Sekt Brut from Lot 61213 is made from the 2011 vintage and was disgorged in November 2015 (the information is given on a small sticker attached to the capsule). Golden in color, it offers a youthful and aromatic nose of raspberry, grapefruit, dried flowers and apricot. The mousse is still quite active (no doubt also due to the recent disgorgement) and this provides the Sekt a feeling of linearity and tension. The finish is very clean, zesty and straight with a very good length. This needs some bottle rest before showing its best, and could even exceed our already high expectations. 2017-2021

Weingut Balthasar Ress (Hattenheim – Rheingau)

The Balthasar Ress Estate has been producing Sekt since the mid-1990s, i.e. in the course of the Sekt revival in Germany. It recently introduced a range of Deutscher Sekt besides its more ambitious set of Rheingau Sekt. The range of Deutscher Sekt comes from the Estate’s vineyards in the Rheingau and those recently acquired on the other side of the Rhine, i.e. in Rheinhessen (and are therefore labelled as Deutscher Sekt).

N.V. Balthasar Ress Riesling Sekt Extra-Dry 90

Golden-hay in color, This Sekt (Lot 10/15) starts off with a rich and ripe nose akin to that of a ripe champagne with honey, almond, toffee and apricot. The wine hugely freshens up (in color and aromatics) with air, to provide brighter scents of pear puree, green apple and bergamot as the wine develops in the glass. The mousse is superbly playful, a touch of zest brings a tickle to the mid-palate and lifts up the aromatics smooth and delicately off-dry finish. This wine-styled sparkling wine is probably the ultimate picnic drink, complex yet pleasing at the same time. We would not be surprised if this would even gain from bottle aging! Now-2018+

Weingut Dr. Stephan Reuter (Krettnach – Saar)

The Reuter family is one of the old names in Krettnach and Stephan Reuter, manager of the local branch of winemaking chamber by day, runs a small winemaking Estate specialized on Sekt as a side activity. Together with his father, a former winemaker at von Kesselstatt, Stephan Reuter launched the production of Sekt in the mid-1990s. All the Sekt activities (except the disgorgement) are carried out at the Estate. Although the label only says Saar Riesling, all Sekt come from the Estate’s holdings in the highly regarded Silberberg sector of the Krettnacher Altenberg. The Estate relies on extensive lees aging: Its “regular Sekt” is aged for at least three years on its lees and its Reserve bottling for at least six years.

N.V. Dr. Stephan Reuter Saar Riesling Sekt Brut 01 14 90

The Saar Riesling Brut AP 01 14 is made from fruit out of the 2010 vintage and was aged for at least three years on its lees. This develops a very fine, aromatic and elegant nose of anise, almond, grapefruit, creamy herbs and honeysuckle. The mousse is nicely integrated and fine, and the fruity and richer side is nicely balanced out by a most refined and zesty acidity. There is a light touch of tartness in the finish which adds depth and a lively side to this dynamic Sparkling wine. Now-2020

N.V. Dr. Stephan Reuter Saar Riesling Sekt Brut 06 15 89

The Non-Vintage Sekt Brut AP 06 15 is made from fruit out of the 2011 vintage and was aged for at least three years on its lees. It offers a deep nose of slate and herbs as well as a nice and well-rounded feel on the palate with good freshness, a hint of herbs and peachy fruit. This epitomizes the elegance of slightly sharp but still nicely fresh Saar Riesling. Now-2019

2005er Dr. Stephan Reuter Saar Riesling Sekt Brut Reserve 09 10 88

This batch of 2005er Saar Riesling Brut Reserve came from a batch left on its lees until mid-2015. It offers a rich, expansive and toffee driven nose of almond paste, nut, bakery products and pineapple. The mousse is still quite active on the palate and over-magnifies somewhat the broad and rich feel on the palate at this stage. The finish is tart and driven by mature and rich flavors. This only needs a year or two in bottle to tame its bubbles and should then prove a nice companion for hearty food. 2017-2020

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