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 Ask an Indian wine drinker about a Riesling wine and you would indeed be very lucky to get a response that it is a white grape variety with its origins in the Rhine valley of Germany. Go to any half decent wine shop and you would have to look really high and low to locate a German wine. Over the last couple of decades, not much has been done to promote German wines in India as compared to what the French, Italians, Australians or the Chileans have done, with the result that consumer awareness of German wines is virtually non-existent leading to low demand and sales in rather miniscule quantities.
So I was pleasantly surprised to receive an invitation for an evening of German wines from3 wineries at the Lemon Tree Hotel at the new Aerocity complex at the Delhi airport. On hand also that evening was the German sommelier, Christina Schwinghammer who spent some time giving the rather sparse audience, an overview of the German wine varieties before getting into the details of the wines from the wineries that were on display.
From the Weingartner Bad Cannstatt winery, we tasted:
·2013 Grauer Burgunder- 3 star and the 2star versions of a dry Pinot Grigio. Retailing for 15 and 10 Euros respectively, both wines were rather lively and would have benefited from another year in the bottle
·2011 Pinot Meunier – a dry wine with hints of spice and smoke . Light at 12.6% alcohol and retailing for 10 Euros.
·2011 1923 edition – Specially bottled to mark the 90th anniversary of the winery, this dry red wine had concentrated fruit which Christina explained was due to reduced yield of 45 litres per acre. Retailing at 20 Euros, this was probably the best wine of the evening.
From the Fellbacher Weingartner winery, we tasted their 2012 Lammler Riesling which was an approachable wine with very subtle fruity aromas and a low alcohol content of 12.6%.
Last up for the evening were 2 wines from the Felsengartenkellerei Besigheim winery
·The 2012 Kerner – an entry level white wine retailing at just under 5 Euros and
·The 2012 Trollinger with Lemberger – a ruby red budget wine with very subtle cherry flavours and not so subtle tannins . Once again a light 12.6% alcohol wine.
All the above wines were served with pass around Asian snacks. The Tasting was then followed by an Asian buffet cum sit-down dinner. Wine pairing with food is extremely important and for the life of me I couldn’t understand how the organizers plumped for Asian cuisine. Be that as it may, unfortunately the Lemon Tree let them down by dishing out outstanding examples of inedible  “Chinjabi” cuisine!!
Better luck next time around.
Arun Batra
Arun Batra is a Delhi based food and wine enthusiast and a long-time member of the Delhi Wine Club |