Hail To The Victors Valiant

So England are through to the finals of the Rugby World Cup beating France, in France, to get there. It's an unexpected bit of success. I missed watching the game as I've been in Michigan, but thought I'd celebrate anyway.

We had a Deinhard Beeren Auslese 2004. It was a pale amber colour with a grapey-honey nose and just a little spice. It tasted sweet but not cloying when served well chilled. The honey-grape flavour continues with some over-ripe peach with cinnamon. It finishes well, leaving fruit but not sugar. 10.5% alcohol keeps it quite light.

It was also an unexpected victory, having been found in the 40% off bin at Meijers, reduced from $10 to $6 - that's £3 for a half bottle - a total steal.

If you do find yourself in SE Michigan next weekend and want to watch England play South Africa on TV it can be done. Scroll down way past the sports channels and into the red light district of the menu, it's being screened on a nudey channel.

Comfort

Airports aren’t normally my favourite wine merchants, but I’ve found myself spending a little too much time in them lately, and they’re boring. Very boring. So shopping eases some of that boredom. I picked up a bottle of H. Sichel Sohne Beerenauslese 2001. I suspect I paid too much for it, but it killed plenty of time as they hermetically sealed it ‘for security reasons’. That made little sense to me, I doubt sweet German wine bottles are the easiest place to conceal explosives, and if I’d wanted to cause mayhem, smashing the bottle would seem an obvious way to start.

At 9% alcohol it’s light enough for an afternoon drink, so that’s what we did on a snowy afternoon in Detroit.

It’s a pale golden colour, and it had a light nose, smelling slightly floral with honey and orange blossom. It’s sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. There’s just enough acid to keep it balanced. It tastes honied, with pineapple and passion fruit and plenty of marmalade. The flavour lasts well, just long enough to stop me taking another sip too quickly.

A bottle went down steadily between three of us over a course of an afternoon whilst I read ‘Widow For One Year’. I felt content, what more can you ask from a bottle of wine?

The peril of being a guest

I love it when people cook for me, it’s a great way to try new things. I also like it when people invite me to restaurants, it’s a good way to eat for free! Unfortunately it sometimes means that you get to try new wines, ordinarily a good thing, but not always. Having been invited to a German restaurant I was faced with the simple question, red or white. I’d ordered what I’d hoped was zander fish from the menu and thought a nice spot of Riesling would go nicely so said ‘white’.

The product that arrived was Piesporter Michelsberg Sonnengarten 1995. Oh dear. Michelsberg is not a word that inspires wine drinker confidence. The wine was pale, almost water white, with little viscosity. It smelled lightly floral with just a hint of peachy fruit. It tasted – but only just. It was medium dry with rather weedy acidity and a Victoria Beckham light body. The florality carries through, it’s pleasant enough for the few moments it lasts, but lacks depth and character.

At 9% alcohol we could have polished off quite a lot before feeling the effects but really, it’s the lack of flavour that will keep you sober rather than the low alcohol.

At around £4 retail this would make an acceptable wine to serve elderly relatives that you don’t much like, but at the restaurant price of around £16, it’s an outrage. At home I’d have frozen the half bottle left over to add cube by cube to liven up fruit salads, but as it was we left it on the table.

Foreign Misadventures

Germans drink more sparkling wine per head of population than anyone else in the word, so on a brief trip I thought I’d join them. Most of the bubbles drunk in Germany are made there, but not from German grapes. Although they get through some Champagne and Prosecco the big market is in Sekt made in industrial tanks from grapes brought in from all over Europe, selected for economy rather than any worries about terroir.

Not surprisingly this kind of wine is limited in its distribution and not worth importing to the UK, so when in Frankfurt I took the opportunity to try Henkell Trocken, popular in that neck of the woods. It’s pale and fizzy with small persistent bubbles. It smells slightly fruity and a little flowery.

It’s off-dry with medium acidity. The bubbles feel firm in the mouth, and with medium alcohol it has quite a full body. It has some autolytic character but there’s still quite a bit of citrus and tropical fruit.

Henkell Trocken is a fun, fizzy, cheap wine. It lacks the elegance of Champagne or even Cava, and doesn’t have the lively fruitiness of an Asti. I suspect I’d never buy a bottle, but next time I’m in the neighbourhood I’ll no doubt have a glass for a little local flavour.

Dr L Riesling 2005

So Germany take on Portugal in a game neither wanted to play. I’ve opted for an affordable, everyday German wine. I ‘d thought about having one wine from each team, but decided against it as I’ve just had the sofa cleaned and was concerned that if I held the glass of German wine too close the Portuguese glass would fall over.

So it’s a Dr L Riesling 2005 for me. Dr Ernie Loosen is one of the best commercial wine brands coming out of Germany at the moment. They’re making consistently good, attractive, drinkable wines. Dr L is their entry level range. The fruit isn’t all from their own vineyards, it’s some leftovers blended with fruit bought on the open market.

The bottle is approachable with no scary-German type on it and it has a screwcap. It’s a very pale green, and attractively bright. It smells fresh and youthful with some stone fruit and apply crispness.

It’s off dry with refreshing acidity, although there’s a hint of sweetness from the volume of fruit. It’s a light bodies wine and low in alcohol at just 8.5%, making it perfect for midweek drinking with dinner. There’s plenty of peaches, nectarines and fresh apricots, as well as a little zip of lemon. There’s a mineral tang to the acidity which keeps it fresh and palate clearing.

At around £5-6 this is a well made, good value wine. It’s easy to see why Decanter chose Dr Loosen as their man of the year. My only concern is that this could get expensive if I start to work my way up the Dr Loosen range. I guess I’m lucky I tried it for Germany’s last game.

German sparkle

Germany has the highest consumption of sparkling wines per head of population in the world, but it’s not easy to find examples of German sparklers outside the country.

Deinhard have been making sparkling wines for 100 years and their Deinhard Lila Riesling Brut is their flagship. It’s 100% Riesling from Rhine and Mosel. It comes in a champagne style bottle, with unfortunate labels and closure which make it look cheap. At around £6.99 it is, sort of, if you compare it to Champagne, but perhaps not if you compare it with Cava or New World ‘bubbly’.

It’s bright and light with plenty of fizz. It has mousse style fizz rather than more aggressive lemonade bubbles.

It smells clean with some hints of blossom and just a little yeastiness. It’s very dry with a crisp acidity. It’s quite light in body with plenty of bubbles on the tongue, almost like pouring too much sherbet powder in you mouth at once. There’s apple blossom and lemon and something not quite nice, almost like orange juice after you’ve brushed you teeth, but it’s not overwhelming.

At 12.5% it’s what you’d expect from generic bubbly in the alcohol department.

Deinhard Lila is fine as cheap-ish bubbles go. If you’re looking for something to make Bucks Fizz with, or to add Cassis to, this would be OK, but I wouldn’t choose it ahead of Cava to drink alone or with oysters (or my favourite, fresh cockles).

If Italy win tonight I’ll mix in some peach nectar and enjoy a Bellini instead.

Germany’s naked ambition

Germany looked to have picked up their game a bit today so another German wine tonight. When I first heard of Naked Grape I thought it was a random wine blog. Whilst it is a wine merchant, it’s also a wine. A Riesling from Germany, from Dr Loosen, who makes some really good stuff - at about £5-6 for a German Riesling, this isn’t going to be his opus, but worth a try.

It’s very pale, but clear and bright. It smells light too. There’s crisp citrus fruit, lemons, limes and grapefruits along with some residual grape aromas which gives it a really fresh feel.

It’s medium sweet, with plenty of acidity to balance the sugar. It’s light and easy drinking and those citrus flavours carry through, almost like an orange and lemon squishy, which is a good thing!

It’s very drinkable and although just below the middle range of alcohol at 11.5% it’s easy to polish off a second glass before dinner is even ready, as it’s just so quaffable served cold.

Blue Matron at the World Cup

With the World Cup kicking off in Germany, it would be rude not to try a German wine. Germany produces some fabulous wines and some just plain dreadful ones. Many people have only tried Blue Nun, and as the company to have produced a more sophisticated big sister to its signature wine, the 2004 Riesling varietal had to be worth a try.

The bottle is clear, looking surprisingly like an Australian wine, with green and yellow colouring, but it’s given away by the nice lady in a habit on the front. Blue Nun seem to want to encourage its core customers to trade up whilst remaining loyal. That key target market is women in their 20’s who don’t drink a lot, but like something nice with dinner or ‘when the girls come round’ (perhaps when ‘the boys’ are in the pub watching the World Cup and drinking lager).

It has a plastic cork, the worst of both worlds. A screwcap would give it enhanced picnicking and last minute off license dash appeal.

The 2004 wine itself is clear and bright, with a very pale lemon-green colour. There’s a hint of petillance - very small bubbles – with reasonable legs. It smells clean and fresh, though it’s not very pronounced. There’s fresh green apples and citrus fruit, with just a hint of yeastiness.

It’s off dry (12g/l of residual sugar if you’re interested in that kind of thing), with a crisp acidic edge, and quite a light body. The prickly petillance makes it feel fresh and lively on the tongue, it’s more noticeable in the mouth, not quite Vinho Verde, but edging that way. The apple is still there, joined by fresh limes, although the flavour fades quickly.

At 12% alcohol it is a big sister to the base Blue Nun that clocks in at about 9.5%. I always find that alcohol percentage work on more of a logarithmic than linear scale, so I suspect this would get you drunk more than 25% quicker, which may be your plan, but should be borne in mind if you’re driving, babysitting, or about to tell your in laws exactly what you think of them.

You can keep great Riesling for decades, but this one needs drinking within 6-12 months, that’s not a fault, just the way it’s made.

All in all it ticks the boxes that Blue Nun wants it to, it’s fancier, drier and higher in alcohol, but for me it lacks the charm of regular Blue Nun. It costs about a quid more, but for another pound you could get a much better new world Riesling (for another £20 you could get a good German one too). Call me sentimental, but I like the comfort food feel of traditional Blue Nun, even with its new improved formula.

Blue Nun - What it tastes like

Blue Nun is famous for being the wine of the 1970’s. If Abigail invited you to a party you wouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised if she served Blue Nun. It seemed to disappear for a while in a sea of Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Pinot Grigio.

It has recently re-emerged with new packaging, a stable of new friends and a ‘new formula’. Previously a Leibfraumilch, the ‘Happy Shopper’ of German wines, it is now a Qualitätswein, which means it does have to meet quality standards, and like an appellation controlled wine, must come from a specified location in this case, the Rhine.

The new formula is around a third Riesling, the finest German grape, the remainder being made up of the Muller Thurgau and other nondescript fruit that made up all of the 70’s blend. So what’s it like?

The bottle is blue, and it’s got a picture of a nun on it, so it’s fairly easy to identify. The wine itself is pale, almost colourless. It’s thin and light. The aroma is similarly light, with a grapey, floral scent. OK, so it’s wine so it should smell of grapes, but this one really does.

It’s not as sweet as you might remember from the 70’s. It’s not as dry as a standard Pinot Grigio, more off-dry than sweet. It could use a little more acid, but its certainly not flabby. It taste a little of blossom, with green apples and some stone fruit like peaches and nectarines, with a touch of almonds.

It’s much lighter than many new world wines at just 9.5% making it easy drinking and fine for a glass in the afternoon, without inducing a nap.

I was pleasantly surprised by the new Blue Nun, it’s light and refreshing, with a range of flavours. It goes well with spicy foods, and is great with fruit salad (it’s pretty good in fruit salad too). It comes in 75cl bottles at around £3 at Tesco, and even in handy ‘picnic sized’ 25cl bottles for around £1.50 if you want to try it out first.

It’s easy to be snooty about Blue Nun. It’s a mass market wine, and it’s being marketed towards people who don’t drink a lot of wine at the moment, but it’s a good product, and makes a good entry point for people who may find wine intimidating, and may not know what to choose.

Blue Nun have tried to make life easier for people by introducing a new range of wines of different styles, from Merlot to Eiswein, all in friendly packaging and with an easy drinking style. If they’re up to the same quality as the mainstream Blue Nun product, they’ll be worth looking out for.

Blue Nun Riesling

Blue Nun is back

An instantly recognisable wine brand of the 1970’s, Blue Nun was perhaps the first wine that many people in the UK ever tried outside of a church. Black Tower and Mateus Rose played a part, as Blue Nun led the way becoming the UK’s best selling wine. Unfortunately, Blue Nun ran the risk of being stuck in the 1970’s with older drinkers moving to reds and drier whites and younger people choosing new world varietals.
Blue Nun, at that time a German Liebfraumilch, looked set to be remembered as a thing of the past, and a pub quiz answer based on the musical ability of its bottles on the Beatles White Album. Blue Nun set about re-branding, and at the same time it changed its product.

A detergent may have tried a ‘new and improved’ sticker and introductory price offers, but Blue Nun wanted to reposition at a higher point of quality. In 1997 Blue Nun’s owners, Langguth, changed the wine. It is now a Qualitatswein rather than a Liebfraumilch, with 10% alcohol by volume (wine label) and is drier in style with 30 % Riesling and 28 g/l of sugar rather than 42 g/l.

However, Blue Nun has come back to the market with more than one wine. Blue Nun’s re-launch was supported by an advertising campaign, as part of the strategy Blue Nun had identified young women in their late 20’s as its target. It could therefore target its marketing spend finely, choosing advertising in print media that appealed to that sector. They did not however rely solely on advertising, employing an intensive public relations campaign designed to get influential people to try Blue Nun. The biggest issue faced according to Marketing Director, Armin Wagner is getting people to try the wine to overcome their pre-conceptions and make a decision based on the beverage itself - "We have to get the wines in front of people and simply say 'try this'".

The bottle design took advantage of new trends and changed to a blue glass for the Qualitatswein and opted for the Bordeaux style bottles for varietals. Keeping the Blue Nun motif across all labels gives cautious consumers the opportunity to try new styles of wine within the comfort of a trusted brand, opening up new sales opportunities.Blue Nun’s campaign was supported by Wines of Germany, the German wine marketing board, who were encouraging people to re-think German wines with the slogan "If you think you know German wine - drink again".

Their campaign appears to be successful. Retail sales of German wine above £6 have grown dramatically (+89%) in the last three years, well above the general increase for wine sales in this price bracket (+16%) in the same period’. The upcoming World Cup in Germany is seen as a further opportunity to sell the UK public on German wine.

The campaign so far has been a success. Blue Nun now claims to be selling more wine in the UK than ever before although its market share is much smaller. Blue Nun sells 12.5m bottles world-wide, and in 2005 5m of those were sold in the UK, at an 11% annual growth rate. In May 2004, Blue Nun continued it’s re-branding campaign by launching a new ready-to-drink beverage called Slinky to compete in the pub and club ‘alcopop’ space.