Ahahr (revisited)! More wines from the Ahr Valley

I know - like buses, you wait for ages for a blog post from me, then two come along at once! Anyway, as promised in my previous post (of literally minutes ago) here's one I wrote earlier, using my new little smart phone gizmos...............

These are my notes from a recent tasting of wines from the (relatively under-the-radar) Ahr Valley region of Germany. This follows on from a similar tasting in November 2010, and the wines certainly seem to be on the up. Just two growers were featured in the latest tasting, namely Weingut Meyer-Näkel and Weingut Kreuzberg, and the prices (from the cellar door) seemed eminently reasonable. As with the 2010 tasting, the wines were presented by Kevin and Ena-Marie Scott, who are regular visitors to the region. Apologies for the standard of the photo, by the way, but it was the only one I took - and is useful, if only to illustrate how Ahr Valley growers for some reason like to put their top Pinot Noir wines into tall bottles!

1. Meyer-Näkel 2012 Illusion No 1 Blanc de Noir
A decent, if rather unremarkable, fizz.

2. Kreuzberg 2013 Blanc de Noir
Nettles and Pears, apples and a touch of wet wool. Lots of acidity, but not a lot else - again, unremarkable.

3. Meyer-Näkel 2013 Weissburgunder
A bit more like it, with some varietal character, albeit in a slightly sicky way. Nice rich, fruity and slightly nutty on the palate, with plenty of juicy acidity and steely minerality. Decent stuff.

4. Meyer-Näkel 2013 Riesling
Cut limes and mineral/Stone. Slightly herbaceous and a hint of orange, which shows even more on the palate. Otherwise, very steely and high acid, but quite enjoyable, though not a lot of Riesling character.

5. Kreuzberg 2013 Spätburgunder
All sour cherries and tobacco, with a tiny hint of oak. Sour red and black cherries on the palate, with a real /asp of lemon juice and quite tarry tannins. Young but promising. €10.80.

6. Meyer-Näkel 2009 Spätburgunder
€10.80. Meat and tobacco on the nose, hints of damp earth. Rich and concentrated, almost sweet, jammy fruit - Stops just short of NZ Style OTT-ness. Quite complex, but a little short on acidity. Decent, but not special.

7. Meyer-Näkel 2013 "G"
This does smell more Burgundian, akin to a Nuits Saint-Georges. Subtle dark cherry and raspberry aromas, with minimal oak influence. Palate is lovely, with Sour Cherry and a slight bitterness that actually contributes to the freshness and structure, with ripe tannins and good acidity. Very good stuff. €14-ish.

8. Meyer-Näkel 2008 "G"
Smoky, slightly bretty nose, almost shitty, with a touch of Band Aid. Palate is really quite dull and flat. Over the hill? I think so.

9. Meyer-Näkel 2013 Frühburgunder
Elegant, complex nose, ranging from red cherry to mandarin Orange, with tobacco and herbs. A nice prickle to the palate, with good acidity and soft tannins, allied to bright red fruits and soft citrus. Manages to be complex and elegant and easy-drinking at the same time. Lovely.

10. Kreuzberg 2009 Unplugged
Ooh, yum! Complex, elegant fruits and damp earth, tobacco and herbs. Lovely palate, pure, high-toned, cherry and raspberry, fine tannins, lemony acidity, elegant and really lovely. Cracking wine.

11. Kreuzberg 2013 Neuenahrer
Dirty, slightly musty nose, but not detrimental to the wine itself. Again, very sprightly, almost lemony, tight, but really quite enjoyable, in a youthful way. Probably wont age, but why wait. Very nice. €13.50.

12. Kreuzberg 2009 Neuenahrer Schieferay
Classy nose, tobacco and earth, subtle oak. Another complex wine, with masses of sour cherry and raspberry fruit, earthy notes, a hint of mixed spice and herb, polished wood and myriad other things going on. This is *really* cracking wine! A stunner. €17-ish, so great vfm. 

13. Meyer-Näkel 2012 Blauschiefer
Equally complex, in a savory, meaty way, with plenty of underlying fruit, hints of flowers. Again, a slight spritzy bite, which heightens the sense of an elegant, complex, fruit-filled wine. Soft tannins, but plenty of juicy acidity, not to mention a really quite Burgundian structure and flavour profile. Really delicious and reasonable value at around €24.

14. Kreuzberg 2009 Devonschiefer
Very Morey-St-Denis, with its exotic spice-laden fruit nose, a gentle meatiness and a touch of damp earth. The palate also reminds me of MSD, with soft spice, raspberry and strawberry fruit, a welcome touch of jamminess and excellent structure. Another winner, which I can see ageing nicely for a few years. Lovely.

15. Meyer-Näkel 2012 "S"
This is another really good wine, which - almost in spite of its similarily to NZ Pinot - hits the Spot in many ways. Tarry, quite rich, but still nicely balanced, if not reaching the heights of the previous few wines. Still very good, though!

16. Kreuzberg 2008 Schieferlay "GG"
Deeper, darker, but with some elegance. Again, more NZ than Burg, albeit very good. I just like it less than some of the more recent vintages.

17. Meyer-Näkel 2006 Demauer Fruhburgunder Pfarrwingert
There is a good wine in here, but the slight oxidation or madeirisation gets in the way.

In conclusion, I would say that (as with the 2010 tasting) the whites from the Ahr region are decent but unexciting. The reds, on the other hand, are getting better and better - and are in some cases genuinely world class.
           
If you would like more information on these two growers, here are links to their own websites........

Weingut Kreuzberg

Weingut Meyer-Näkel
                         

Isn't technology wonderful?! A pair of new apps that have just made my life a lot easier.

Yes, I know that it has - once again - been a while. But this time I might be back for good, as I have news of a couple of "apps" I have discovered, both of which are free, which will hopefully facilitate much more action on this blog than there has been over the last year or more.

Firstly, Google Handwriting Input is the sort of thing that I have been searching for, for a very long time - namely, the ability to use a stylus (or indeed just my index finger) to write on the screen of my smart phone (in my case, a Samsung S4 Mini, with Android). I simply scribble away at whatever it is I want to write, and - hey presto! - it converts my writing to text in whatever application I am in at the time, be it text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, or indeed anything at all that would normally require me to type into my phone. As with most things that are new to us, it takes just a little bit of getting used to, but it really is quite intuitive, and any errors that it makes are usually down to my terrible handwriting. These are easily spotted, and it only takes a couple of clicks on the backspace button to correct. That said, I find that my mistakes are getting fewer, since it appears to develop something akin to predictive text, in that it seems to recognise unusual words or names that I have written previously - which comes in very useful when I need to write so many foreign wine names and places. It even recognises accents on letters - é, ô, ü, etc. All-in-all, a very useful little application, which renders the keypad (and in many circumstances, the keyboard) redundant.

One of the best things about the Handwriting app for me is that I no longer need to go through the laborious task of writing notes (with a pen and paper/notebook) and then sitting down at the desktop computer and typing them into a document or application. For instance, as my customers and friends know, I write full tasting notes of every single wine I sell via the Leon Stolarski Fine Wines website, which was always a necessary but somewhat painful task. But now I can open a bottle of wine of an evening, take a photo and then swirl, sniff and sip to my heart's content, whilst writing my note into a Facebook post. I can therefore kill two birds with one stone, by boring my Facebook friends about what I am drinking *and* writing a "live" tasting note to add to the website (or indeed this blog). Who said men can't multi-task?! ;-)

The second app I have installed is called Google Keep, which is essentially a note-taking organiser. For those of you who remember the 80's, think Filofax, but without the hassle - or indeed the shame of actually being seen with one (and I never dared buy one)! Google Keep offers me the facility to write notes "on the go", in conjunction with the Handwriting app, which are then recorded for posterity in the cloud. You can also take photos from within the app, which are stored with the relevant note. An even more amazing function of Google Keep - especially for someone like me, who still looks on in wonder, as a large airliner magically lifts off from the ground - is that you can take a photograph of a printed document, press a button and have it "grab" the text. Which comes in very useful when faced with (for instance) a long tasting sheet at a wine presentation. So with the name of each wine already written for me by the app, I then simply write my notes underneath. Isn't technology wonderful?

I should add that - at least from a personal point of view - I don't see the above technology as having replaced the good old desktop computer. Sometimes, it is easier to simply sit down and use a keyboard and a mouse - and I don't see that changing for a good while yet. Indeed, this post was written in that way. But my next post (which will follow almost immediately) will have been compiled almost exclusively on my little phone, before being copied and pasted into Blogger............