'The magic of riesling, that's what I want to show'

The town of Oestrich-Winkel on the Rhine has only 12,000 inhabitants, Ulrich Allendorf will tell us later, which is something like the municipality of Laren or Landsmeer in the Netherlands. Yet we ended up there in the Allendorf.Wein.Erlebnis.Welt. After all, the monks already planted the noble Riesling in their abbey gardens and now the Allendorf family makes wines from it here in all shapes and sizes. - TEXT EDITORS | IMAGE PEXELS.COM

'The magic of riesling, that's what I want to show'

In which a small area can be big?

'Yes, the lion's share of Rheingau is planted with riesling, more than 80 per cent, even though it is Germany's smallest wine region with 3,000 hectares. In the Moselle and the Nahe, riesling also dominates. Come, I lead you through our oenosensory tasting. We start with a room the keeps changing colour, so the wine in your glass changes flavour!'

One Riesling tastes different every time, extraordinary say. But judging by your large shop, you make many different ones, don't you?

'Yes, we even have an alcohol-free version of Riesling, which we are the only one in Germany to make by centrifuging with a spinning cone column. Look, normally a winemaker can make two types of wine from a grape, with or without oak, for short. So a South African friend was very surprised that I could make more than 20 Rieslings. How I do that? The vineyards are not very high, at 600 metres, but they are 2,000 years old. And there are 200 different soil types! No other grape than Riesling can express the soil so well.'

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Curious about the rest of the interview and other wine news? Read it in WINELIFE Magazine 78. You can order this one here!

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