Two Bottles Gebrüder Mathis
We drink from the Gebrüder Mathis Winery a bottle of Chardonnay St. Morand and a bottle of Souris Grise from 2020.
This week we wander geographically a good bit north to the Tuniberg. What has remained the same, however, is the soil. Unlike the Kaiserstuhl, which is certainly better known and only a short distance away, the Jura limestone dominates on the Tuniberg, as it did last week on the Klotz. Much like the Kaiserstuhl, sunshine hours are not in short supply here, and the Tuniberg is one of the warmest regions in Germany. Pretty much directly west of Freiburg in the middle of Merdingen on the Tuniberg lies the winery of the Mathis brothers. With the 2020 vintage, the next or current generation has taken the helm at the winery. Severin Stich and Sabeth Sedlatschek and their team focus primarily on Burgundy varieties and at the same time are converting the winery to organic farming. Although there is a wide range of Pinot Noirs, the choice fell on two white wines. We drink a Chardonnay St. Morand, which is fermented spontaneously after the hand harvest and then aged for a year in barrique before being bottled unfiltered. Plus, for the label buyer in me, it was practically impossible not to buy the Souris Grise. I mean, look at the picture. How can you not buy that. In the bottle is Pinot Gris, which also comes unfiltered and with a bit of yeast after whole cluster pressing and 12 months in large wood. Both wines are from the 2020 vintage.
Let’s start with the Chardonnay. There is a slight stinker, a lot of spice and a bit of wood. You look for fruit in vain at the beginning. In addition, there is a very small bit of reduction, as one also often finds in wines from the Jura. On the tongue, the wine is cool and stony with a lot of draw. There’s a bit of yuzu and saltiness on the lips. This is really good.
Over night the reduction disappears completely. Now the wine has fine yellow, almost a bit sweet fruit and a bit of butter on the nose. The first night the wine had more pressure, more edge, now it has become much rounder, smoother. I don’t even want to judge which is better, because that’s completely a matter of taste. I like the edge and contour of the first evening a little bit more. But there’s still a lot of acidity and structure in the wine, of course. I think you have to try it out and then you can decide to drink it right away or just wait another day for the touch more charm. No matter what you decide then, you are guaranteed to have a lot of fun with this Chardonnay either way.
The Souris Gris then has a pretty decent stink on the nose. I don’t like that at first. But then I’m not so easy to break down and you can get into it, at least that’s what you want to do, and air also helps a bit. What’s missing at the beginning is an idea of how the wine will develop and what it actually smells like. That’s just more of a feeling thing between I do not like this at all and I maybe like this quite a bit but I do not really know yet. There is a bit of puffed cereal, something reminds also of fruit and a bit of caramel is there as well. In the mouth, however, the gray mouse is super fresh from the start and has a good amount of texture. Let’s see where this goes.
And patience really does pay off. The stink practically disappeared completely after one day. Quite the opposite is true about the caramel, which now gives quite a wonderful nose as a fine buttery caramel with some fruit, spice and freshness. This is damn good now and that even though I was briefly afraid directly after opening that the sink drinks more of this bottle than I do. There’s pear, elderflower and some fruit sweetness. This has become incredibly easy to drink, juicy and fresh. I don’t think any wine has gone from fear to great joy as blatantly as this one has. You should buy it anyway just to be able to put the bottle on the shelf, but as it has developed now, there are a thousand more reasons for it. I’m really excited and sad when this one is empty. This is once again a real discovery.