The thought of being trapped underground for any length of time is enough to send some people off the deep end. The thought of being trapped underground for 3 months without any wine is a whole different ball game.

In the event you missed the news, an underground landslide has trapped 33 Chilean miners about 700 meters underground since August 5th. Already the group has been trapped longer than any other in history. The miners are miraculously in good health and reasonably good spirits. One of them has proposed to his girlfriend. They’ve made videos for the world. They’re getting vitamins, food, and anti-depressants.

But apparently they won’t be getting any wine, despite specifically requesting it.

Now, there may very well be some very good reason why these guys shouldn’t have any wine, but notwithstanding some dire threat to their welfare as a result (dehydration? rash decisions under the influence) it certainly seems like it would be the humane thing to do to pour some Carmenere down their little supply tube.

If they can’t take a shower, at least let them have a glass of wine.

Read the full story.

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Winemaker’s Cottage
This is a photograph of the cottage where the winemaker for J. Bouchon winery lives in Chile’s Maule Valley. I never really imagine myself as a winemaker or winegrower (I’d much rather just drink the stuff, and I tend to kill plants) but if I were so inclined, I’d definitely want to live in the middle of my vineyards. It seems to me that if you are going to tie your livelihood to plants, and if you aspire to grow them to the peak of perfection, you should live with them for as much of your day as possible. Of course, it would help if your vineyards were in as beautiful a landscape as these. — Alder Yarrow

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There are a few categories of wine that qualify for the designation of “I just don’t drink nearly enough of this stuff” in my house, and one of the top candidates is German Riesling. When it’s good, it’s just so damn good. It goes so well with food, and it makes you happy. What’s not to love?

Of course, to the uninitiated (and that applied to me about six years ago) it can be an intimidating landscape to navigate. The inscrutable labels, the different levels of sweetness, the unfamiliar quality designations — they all contribute to an unease for many wine lovers that I remember well. Luckily, I got over my fear and learned enough to navigate my way through the forest of umlauts and hard consonants, and have been rewarded with experiencing some of the most delicious wines on the planet.

This particular bottle is a near-perfect example of everything good that German Riesling has to offer, thanks to its legendary producer, fantastic vineyard site, and classic flavors.

The name on the label is one of the most well known in Germany’s Mosel Valley, and even the country as a whole. The Loosen family has owned and farmed vineyards on the steep riverbanks for more than two centuries. The doctor on the label is one Ernst Loosen, who assumed control of his family’s vineyard in 1988, and quite single-handedly took the estate to an entirely new level of quality in the three decades since.

Loosen had the good fortune to be working with some of the best possible raw materials on the planet. The Loosen family vineyards are some of the oldest and most distinctive vineyard plots in Germany, among which the vineyard that produced this wine, the Ürziger Würzgarten, may be the most superlative.

Translated to English, the vineyard’s name means the Spice Garden of Ürzig, Ürzig being the little village that sits below the vineyard at the water’s edge. Containing some of the oldest vines (some exceeding 120 years of age) owned by the Loosens, this vineyard is a mindbogglingly steep slope of bright red rock that sweeps up from the river’s edge in a shallow bowl. Impossible to work mechanically, and dangerous to work manually, getting fruit out of this vineyard can only be described as a labor of love. It takes somewhere between 1000 and 1500 man-hours per acre each year to maintain the vineyard, whose old vines (many of which predate the phylloxera epidemic that wiped out nearly all of Europe’s vineyards) yield precious little fruit.

The vineyard, like all of Loosen’s Mosel vineyards, is farmed organically, and painstakingly by hand. The elimination of all chemical fertilizers and pesticides was one of Loosen’s first decisions in his quest to elevate the quality of his family’s wines. Likewise, the cellar techniques have been reduced to their most fundamental, with as little mechanical or chemical intervention in the winemaking as possible.

This wine is classified as a spätlese, which literally translates to “late harvest” and which means that the grapes used to make it were picked at least seven days after the normal harvest that would have yielded a dry, kabinett level wine. Confusingly the spätlese designation does not technically guarantee anything about the level of sweetness in the bottle, only that the grapes were a little extra ripe when they were picked. In practice, however, German spätlese, in particular, tend to be lightly to moderately sweet, this wine being no exception.

Dr. Loosen is now one of the most consistent and high-quality producers in the Mosel, and this is one of my favorite wines from his portfolio (the other being the spätlese from the fabulous Wehlener Sonnenuhr vineyard). I highly recommend it to anyone, from those looking to dip their toe into German Riesling, to those like me who can’t seem to find enough excuses to drink the stuff.

This 2008 vintage wine has just been released globally, and may take a little time before being more widely available.

Full disclosure: this wine was sent to me as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Near colorless in the glass, this wine smells of lychee, ripe pear, and honeysuckle flowers. In the mouth, a wonderful silky texture marries with bright mandarin orange, pear, and honeysuckle fruit flavors, a light sweetness, and a crackling mineral undertone that does, true to name, yield to a light spiciness. Fantastically balanced, this wine keeps on giving through a very long finish. Effortless to drink.

Food Pairing:
I’d love to drink this wine with any sort of Vietnamese food, like Vietnamese noodle bowl and Imperial Rolls.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $38

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

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