Moore Brothers Wine Company » our winegrowers

weingut freiherr von heddesdorff

greg — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:08:24 +0000

Our earliest contact in Germany came by way of Thomas Hähn, a young German who worked with Dave when he was at WineAccess, the company that developed and hosts our e-commerce web sites. Thomas’ sister Irmy is married to Andreas von Canal (shown in photo), proprietor and winemaker at Weingut Freiherr von Heddesdorff in the village of Winningen near Koblenz, where the lower Mosel joins the Rhine.

Weingut von Heddesdorff is in the first rank of producers in the district (and one of the oldest – the winery has operated continuously since 1424), and in addition to supplying Moore Brothers with distinctive, creamy textured, mostly dry Rieslings, Andreas and Irmy have generously housed, fed, and encouraged us with information leading to some of our favorite producers in other regions.

Posted by Greg Moore

ratzenberger rieslings

greg — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 02:24:04 +0000

Jochen “Opa” Ratzenberger

The view through the bedroom window is dominated by the towering hill of the Steeger St. Jost. We linger over an old Kabinett with “Opa”in his rose-garden. He thinks I’ll understand more of his musical German if he gets very close and speaks very slowly. I always feel at home here…
Greg Moore

Weingut Ratzenberger in New Jersey
Weingut Ratzenberger in Delaware
Weingut Ratzenberger in New York

Posted by Greg Moore

elio grasso

frank — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:27:10 +0000

Painting the thumbnail portrait of Elio Grasso is beyond my ken. Elio is a man of great character…and, well, a character.

Elio 's parents saved to send their eldest to university. But city life was not for Elio. He left a banking career to take over the family estate. A comfortable routine was replaced by the full workload of the farm (winery) with concurrent courses in oenology and agronomy.

Aided by his “treasure,” wife Marina, Elio Grasso developed his family 's great vineyards and small cantina into a model, modern Barolo estate.

Elio turned over the primary winemaker/cellar master duties to son Gianluca in 1999.

At age 70, Elio, though still the boss, prefers to be in the open air working and supervising in the vineyards. Now that there are two strong men on hand, the attention to detail here has brought Elio 's fine winery to a very special level.

-Posted by Frank Splane

more on yeasts in the vineyard

David Moore — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:29:13 +0000

Interesting little clip from Andreas Von Canal talking about yeasts in the vineyard – which brought to mind an earlier post this week. So I thought I’d pass this along…

Posted by David Moore

peter jakob kühn

greg — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:00:44 +0000

The Romans planted vines in the Rheingau on slopes where the snow first melted in the spring, and the first recorded Spätlese was a Rheingau Riesling. But for almost fifty years, the region has stagnated, with the large, traditional estates consistently issuing unworthy, mediocre wines.

The Rheingau renaissance began in the 1980's, with producers like Robert Weil and Bernhard Breuer. In the 1990's another half-dozen small family producers joined them, with Peter Jakob Kühn heading the list of the very best. Peter farms biodynamically, without the labor saving benefit of herbicides, and ferments his Reislings on the natural, ambient yeast.

Though a very traditional winemaker, he is fearless in his willingness to adopt new methods when they are shown to yield better results. For example, after much of his 1999 harvest was spoiled by tainted corks, Peter Jakob Kühn joined the ranks of other courageous producers around the world, unhesitatingly adopting stainless steel caps and Stelvin caps in place of corks, even for his most expensive wines.

In 1991, Peter won the prestigious Feinschmecker award for the best dry Riesling in Germany. In March 2002, the Deutsches Weininstitut selected his Oestricher Doosberg Riesling Spätlese trocken 2000 to represent Germany at the European Wine Council Annual Gala Dinner held at Le Cirque in New York. The only source in America was Moore Brothers, so we sent three cases for the event.

Posted by Greg Moore