Hello my friends, Ernie Loosen here. Thought you’d enjoy this photo of my recent visit to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Hong Kong. At 490 meters high, it is the world’s highest hotel and has breath-taking views of Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong Island and the New Territories.
While there, I did a training about our wines for the wonderful and talented staff. It was a great visit.
The holidays are fast approaching, and what a busy year it’s been at our joint venture, J. Christopher Winery in Newberg, Oregon (USA).
The winery had a fantastic season with lots of people visiting and a great harvest–the fruit was gorgeous, and we think we’re going to have some fantastic wines from the 2012 vintage. We even picked the very first fruit from the Appassionata vineyard (in the photo, below).
The first-ever harvest from Appassionata vineyard at J. Christopher Winery.
If you’ll be in or near Oregon over the next two weeks, be sure to stop by the annual Thanksgiving celebration at the winery. You have several options!
SATURDAY, NOV 17 - Pre-Thanksgiving Open House for JCru Members
Join Winemaker Jay Somers, along with his family and friends, in the barrel cellar and be among the first to enjoy the 2010 single-vineyard Pinot Noirs, which include the ever-popular Sandra Adele, new bottlings from neighboring Olenik and Lia’s Vineyards, as well as the always-spectacular Abbey Ridge Vineyard. We’ll also be showing two of our most sought-after 2011 white wines: the Blanc de Noir and the Croft Vineyard Über Sauvignon, a very unique wine fermented in an acacia wood barrel. Come taste with us and stock up for the holidays!
Exclusively for our JCru and JCru Wine Club members. This will be a complimentary tasting as our way of saying thank you for always supporting us and our wines. (Want to be a JCru member? It’s FREE! Join the JCru here!)
Open hours: Saturday, Nov. 17, 11 am to 3 pm
FRIDAY/SATURDAY, Nov 23 & 24 – Thanksgiving Weekend Open House
Everyone’s invited to our Thanksgiving Weekend Open House, where we’ll be showing the same wines as at the JCru Open House and may throw in something special, maybe even some music from Jay and Tim? You never know!
Open hours: Friday & Saturday, Nov. 23 & 24, 11 am to 3 pm
Tasting fee: $10 (one refundable tasting fee per $200 purchase)
Discount: 10% on case purchases (including mixed cases)
Location: 17150 NE Hillside Drive, Newberg, Oregon (We have great directions from Portland on our website. Better than Google’s, which will send you on a round-about detour.)
Phone: 503-231-5094 (office) or 503-554-9572 (winery)
Hope you can join us!
Looking forward to seeing you and wishing everyone a lovely holiday.
When Food & Wine Magazine picks you as their pairing of the day, you know it’s going to be a tasty experience!
Wine & Food featured our Erdener Treppchen Kabinett on page 14 and, again, with the carnitas recipe, on page 138.
This week, the celebrated magazine paired our Dr. Loosen Erdener Treppchen Riesling Kabinett 2011 with pork carnitas. We tested it ourselves and…wow!!!
You can find the recipe in the November issue of Food & Wine and also on their website under Pairing of the Day November 5-9.
Here’s what they said about the pairing:
“Alcohol actually makes spicy food taste even hotter, so low-alcohol, lightly sweet wines are great; they’ll even cool off your palate. Try full-bodied German Kabinett Rieslings, like the Dr. Loosen Erdener Treppchen Kabinett, which also has enough body to go with substantial meat dishes like these chile-pork carnitas.”
Try it!
We are honored to announce that three of our Rieslings were chosen for the inaugural Decanter Asia Wine awards this week!
Dr. L Riesling 2011 – Silver Best Value.
Dr. Loosen’s non-estate wine embodies the elegant and racy style of classic Mosel Riesling. It is refreshing and fruity, with a fine mineral edge that is typical of the region. Dr. L Riesling is made with fruit that comes exclusively from traditional vineyards with steep slopes and slate soil. By working closely with local growers on long-term contract, brothers Ernst and Thomas Loosen are able to maintain excellent quality in every vintage. Dr. L Riesling is bottled with a screwcap to avoid cork problems and to preserve freshness. Learn more.
Dr. Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett 2011 – Silver
This precipitously steep and rocky vineyard (VAY-len-er ZON-en-ooer) yields some of the most elegant and sophisticated white wines in the world. The classic blue slate soil gives the wine a delicate, crisp acidity that perfectly balances the pure peach and lemon fruit. The hallmarks of the 2011 vintage are purity and balance. Ideal weather during harvest produced wines with an enormous fruit aroma and a dense texture. It’s a charming wine that dances gracefully on the palate. Learn more.
Dr. Loosen Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Auslese 2010 – Bronze
Blazing red and insanely steep, the Ürziger Würzgarten (ERTS-ih-ger VERTS-gar-ten) vineyard fills the amphitheater formed by this bend in the river. It produces wines with exotic, spicy aromas bursting with tropical fruit flavors. The estate’s oldest vines are found here. The 2010 Ürziger Würzgarten Auslese is lush and ripe, with complex layers of peach, apple and citrus. Its full, fruit-driven sweetness is held together by intensely taut, racy acidity characteristic of this vintage. Learn more.
The first Decanter Asia Wine Awards, a sister competition to the Decanter World Wine Awards, attracted 2,249 wines from 42 wine regions.
The wines were judged in Hong Kong in September by a team of Asia’s leading experts under the joint chairmanship of Steven Spurrier and Jeannie Cho Lee MW, and vice chairs Gerard Basset MS MW, CH’NG Poh Tiong, Michael Hill-Smith MW AM, Andrew Jefford, and Shinya Tasaki.
Wine Vendors – When you’re planning your future Summer of Riesling promotions, take a page from Jacquie Man at International Cellar in Oldsmar, Florida. Here was her wonderfully creative entry in our 2012 Summer of Riesling contest:
“I teach a weekly, evening wine class at our wine shop, and plan to wrap up the Summer of Riesling with a class and Oktoberfest celebration (German foods, paired of course, with Rieslings) featuring the Dr. Loosen Dry Red Slate and Dr. Loosen Blue Slate wines.
I have been working with Andrea Davidoff, my contact at Wines of Germany in New York City, who has gone above and beyond, and secured for me some German red slate and blue slate rock samples, so that I can give my students a true idea of the terroir, and make the wines of Germany that much more relevant, realistic, and tangible to them.
Since my teaching includes both a wine tasting segment, and classroom learning segment, I have written and will be handing out my version of the Dr. Seuss book, “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.” (see below).
I think this will make the class both fun, and memorable, and will keep my students talking about the evening’s events for weeks to come, which of course means they will be talking about Rieslings!
One Slate, Two Slate, Red Slate, Blue Slate
(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)
One slate, two slate, red slate, blue slate.
Black slate, blue slate, old slate, true slate.
Slate is red and slate is blue, slate is old and never new.
Some wines are sweet and some are not. And some just really hit the spot.
Why are some thought good or great? I just don’t know – must be the slate.
Some are Mosel, some are Rhine, and some I could drink anytime.
From there to here, from here to there, German wines from everywhere.
Here is one I like to say: trocken – beren – auslese.
Oh me! Oh my!
Oh me! Oh my!
What a lot of wine to buy.
Some have two styles, some have four.
Some have six, and some have more.
Where do they come from?
All I can say
Is that they’ve come a long, long way.
We see them come.
We see them go.
Some sell fast
They don’t sell slow.
Some are high priced.
And some are low.
Not one of them is like another.
The perfect choice
This Riesling Summer.
The Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting is TOMORROW (October 17) in San Francisco! Loosen Bros. USA VP Kirk Wille will be there, pouring a great selection of wines from our “Friends of Ernst Loosen” portfolio.
Here’s our line-up. Stop by our table to taste these wines!
DR. LOOSEN
(click to learn more about these wines)
C von SCHUBERT/MAXIMIN GRÜNHÄUSE
(click to learn more about these wines)
ROBERT WEIL
(click to learn more about these wines)
Hope to see you there!
After already winning the award for the best dry wine in 2011, our good friends at Maximin Grünhaus (a member of our “Friends of Ernst Loosen” portfolio) have now been named “German Producer of the Year 2012” by Mundus Vini, the professional wine academy established by the highly regarded publisher, Meininger Verlag.
The basis for this prize was gold medals awarded to four of their dry wines from the 2011 vintage, selected by an international jury of 215 professional tasters.
➢ 2011 Maximin Grünhäuser Riesling Qualitätswein trocken
➢ 2011 Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling Qualitätswein trocken
➢ 2011 Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling Alte Reben trocken
➢ 2011 Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling Superior
Congratulations to the von Schubert family and everyone at the Grünhaus estate!
Learn more about Maximin Grünhäuser wines.
Hello friends, Ernie here. A few days ago we had a wine dinner at Club Qing, a private Kitchen in Hong Kong. Kennice, the owner, is a great friend of ours and the food is outstanding. Here we started in spring our exclusive Erdener Pràlat Club! Special thanks to Tommy Chan for these photos!
Hello my friends, Ernie here.
I was in Taiwan a few days ago and our distributor, Simon Teng from Simon Wine Cellars in Hsin Chu, organized an unusual tasting in a great setting. He rented an old Hakka farmhouse and put a whole 120-pound pork on the barbecue. It is done in the traditional Hakka style, which are the native people of this area. As you can see, we had a lot of fun and people loved the Dr. Loosen Riesling and J Christopher Pinot Noir.
Simon Teng and his wife, Dominique Levy, my importer and Janet Chen, our translator.
Invoke the hoo! Our Dr. Loosen Dr. L Riesling is #13 on Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s Top 100 Best Buys list!
Read more about our Dr. L Riesling.
