German Pinot and sparkling wines wait in the wings

With the popularity of Pinot Noir and sparkling wines still on the rise, the opportunities are increasingly real for Germany’s own versions believes one UK specialist.

The WineBarn owner Iris Ellmann and Sekt producer Nico Brandner

Speaking to the drinks business at The WineBarn’s annual portfolio tasting this month, owner Iris Ellmann said she’d noticed, “more private customers contacting me about Pinot Noir.”

Often inspired by examples they’d tried in restaurants, she added, she thought it was the on-going trickle down effect of the industry’s interest in the wines (now a few years old) taking hold among consumers.

She was also sure that the rising cost of Burgundy at the same time as interest in the region and grape continued to explode was driving more customers to seek out similar but more affordable Pinots from elsewhere.

‘People will not give up Burgundy altogether,” she reasoned, “but it [German Pinot] complements the Burgundy style with its elegance and red fruit.

“And it’s also important that German Pinot ages so well,” she said, saying she was still able to source some older wines for the “real fans”.

When it came to German sparkling wine she admitted to being positive but also frustrated by the current scene.

“When I talk to somms it’s so frustrating because it’s all Prosecco or Champagne,” she said but there was more hope among her private clients who had already latched on to one of the producers in her portfolio – Solter, which she said were “really well made wines that offer value for money”.

Clearly confident enough in the interest in German fizz, the portfolio tasting was also the introduction of a new sparkling producer to the portfolio.

Griesel, overseen by winemaker Nico Brandner, is something of a boutique producer making 60,000 bottles a year and specialising in traditional method Pinot and Chardonnay cuvees.

Long the domain of big brand, large volume producers or often made as an afterthought to the more traditional range of dry and sweet Rieslings, German fizz has struggled to build much of a following even in bubbles-obsessed Britain but smaller-scale producers such as Griesel could be an antidote to that.

Trendily low is dosage, Ellmann described them as excellent food wines and concluded she “hoped” German wine would come to be seen as a viable alternative.