Two Bottles Wein Goutte
We are drinking from Franconia, by Wein Goutte, a bottle of What Time Is Too Late To Go To Bed and Newstalgia, both vintage 2023.
It is what it is, I am highly susceptible to moderately good puns like Wein Goutte. Which works best in German I guess. Add a trendy label and I’m practically a customer. Emily Campeau and Christoph Müller make wine under this name in Hüttenheim, Franconia. If you’re as lost as I am on the mental map: that’s a few minutes south of Iphofen at the edge of the Steigerwald, somewhere between Nuremberg and Würzburg. As is often the case with wines sporting labels like these, there isn’t a typical winemaker’s career behind the bottles. Christoph and Emily are career changers, both originally come from the hospitality industry and fell in love during the harvest at Weingut Weninger in Austria. With each other, and soon after, with the idea of making wine together. First in Austria for two vintages, and finally in Franconia, where they now farm about four hectares organically together with Linda and Erhard Haßold from the Weinhof am Nussbaum.
We’ll be tasting two of their wines: What Time Is Too Late To Go To Bed 2023, a cuvée of 30% Müller-Thurgau, 30% Bacchus, 15% Muscaris, and 25% Johanniter (another page from the winery claims the shares are each a quarter). According to my better half, thats easy by the way and the answer to the question is 9:46 p.m., but that’s another matter. Muscaris and Johanniter are fungus-resistant varieties (PIWIs) that can be grown with less crop protection, planted here in the early 2000s. The Müller vines date back to 1972 and 2007 in their vineyard, the Bacchus to 1972, so, old vines. Each variety is vinified separately, sometimes with skin contact, sometimes in wood, sometimes in steel. The wines are blended just before bottling, with a tiny bit of sulfur, as the wine heads toward the bottle. The Newstalgia is a Rotling from Müller-Thurgau (60%) and Domina (the rest). The grapes are both purchased and in conversion to organic. Because of the purchase, the label must say Super Goutte instead of Wein Goutte. The convolutions of German wine law. Rotling, known locally around my home as Schiller (though as a Landwein it can’t be called Schiller, as far as I know), is made when red and white grapes are processed together. I always find it a bit funny, because the idea of mixing red and white wine to get rosé isn’t really that absurd, and the topic of skin contact for color needs quite a bit of involvement and diving into wine. The two varieties were harvested on different days, macerated together, and pressed after three days. That period turns the wine into what you’d likely call a very pale red rather than a dark rosé. Fermentation and aging take place in large wooden barrels. All the vines for these wines grow on keuper soils, and all the wines are bottled as Landwein.
The white wine is intensely aromatic at first: white currants, gooseberry, something floral, elderflower as if drizzled with syrup, with green stemmy notes on the nose. The acidity is super fresh. And, the high art in an aromatic wine, I can drink it in big gulps. And without it getting on my nerves. I’m usually a bit sensitive to aromatic bottles like this one. There’s structure behind it, some fruit, and you just keep drinking. It’s lovely.
Overnight, the aroma calms down. Less like aromatic varieties, more like lemonade with bergamot and meadow herbs. Unsweetened. You get the feeling the wine has leaned back in an armchair and relaxed. I guess it’s got its bedtime just right. Not much changes in the mouth, maybe a bit more structure. You don’t have to go out on a limb to predict the usual reaction when reading these four varieties. I include myself in that. But this is really good. Honestly. It’s serious, highly vibrant, balancing the act of also being a Saturday afternoon soda.
Newstalgia is spicy, herbal, with a few dirty berries in between. It smells more like light red wine than rosé. There’s some bell pepper, more red than green, a bit of meat juice and smoke. On drinking, it becomes very creamy, with freshness and more berry fruit than on the nose. Lean, straightforward, with lots of spice at the back of the tongue. Biting into a pink peppercorn, that stuff often found in pepper blends that isn’t actually pepper, kind of feels like drinking this wine.
More often than not, such a light funk disappears overnight. Not here, it actually intensifies. At the same time, the wine gets even juicier. The perfect pairing with red pasta, by the way. The wine makes the noodles better, and the noodles improve the wine. This is in fact sort of a light red wine. We’ve had something like this from Tschida before, but only from red grapes in that case. But the direction is similar. And that, although there’s more white than red in the barrel. Domina must be taking the lead here, or holding the whip, depending on your view. Offline, I’d make a clicking noise now, feel a bit embarrassed, but then still find it quite funny. And I’ve kept the innuendo going throughout an entire post, so now we’ll just have to get through this terrible pun together. The wine itself, though, is really good. Amazing how it’s always Franconia that manages to make me enjoy Schiller again, and does it so well.