Neustadt

If you visit the Palatinate for three weeks, there’s no way around the topic of wine. Marjeta Kralj met wine connoisseur Ulrich Fischer for an interview about the largest Riesling growing area of the world and wineries that can match up to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Mr. Fischer, there’s an enormous variety of wines here. I need your help: Can you tell me which ones I shouldn’t miss?

Fischer: The Palatinate is the largest Riesling area of the world, and that’s why you have to begin with a Riesling, perhaps from Deidesheim or Forst. A wonderful type of red wine is the “Spätburgunder.” The third to savour would be a “Weißburgunder,” a type of grape that thrives in the southern part of the Palatinate where the soils are a bit heavier.

And what makes these wines stand out?

A skill we developed from early on is to keep the acidity of our wines rather moderate. Another characteristic stems from the fact that the Rhine rift stretching from Mainz down to Basel sagged at a certain point in time. As a result, very old layers of rock appeared at the scarp faces. Some of our vineyard soils are 350 million years old. The soil conditions at the scarps vary greatly, and this has a significant effect on the wines’ sensory characteristics.

People hereabouts seem to be quite fun loving even in the winter season; but I was told that if you really want to get to know the Palatinate at its best you have to go to a wine festival…

The perfect month to visit a wine-growing region is always September. Temperatures will still be warm, the vineyards change their colour and the grape harvest begins. However, the wine festivals begin as early as April and actually continue until November. I come from the Moselle region and have realized that people in regions with rich soils tend to be somewhat more generous, more hospitable than elsewhere. People who live in abundance seem to be more open-handed.

What would you say is something typical of the Palatinate?

A rustic restaurant, I would say. But I can show you wineries here with stores that could just as well be located next to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, or Michelin-starred restaurants that really are at the cutting edge.

As someone who does not come from the Palatinate, what do you say to the culture of serving wine by the glass?

When I saw the “schoppen” glasses for the first time, I only shook my head. But then I served wine once myself and saw that no one empties their glass alone. It’s something interactive and very easy-going. We also have wineries that sell their bottles for 30 or 40 euro in New York. We never gave up our traditions or our uncomplicated ways in the last 20 or 30 years, but at the same time a fascinating modern wine culture has evolved.
 
I heard you are also a connoisseur of Slovenian wines. Are there similarities between the German and the Slovenian wine culture?

One similarity is the focus on white wines, and in Slovenia there are also major differences between the regions. Slovenia isn’t big, roughly the size of the Palatinate, but I found a wide variety of wines there.
 
Are Slovenian wines available for sale here?

I think so. Germany is the largest wine market of the world; we import the largest volumes of wine worldwide. The 80 million Germans are very open; they like to try out many different wines.
 
But Germans are known as beer lovers…

People in southern Germany drink 40 litres of wine per person, while consumption in our region averages at 25 litres. Those are reasonable medium levels, similar to those in England, but lower than in Italy or Spain – and yet consumption has remained stable for 20 years, whereas it has been decreasing in the traditional wine nations. After all, half of all Germans keep to beer.
 
Isn’t that a problem for wine sales?

Not at all. Our reputation in the world of wine has considerably improved in the past 10 to 15 years. An issue in the past actually was that we were known for sweet, simple and cheap wines – that was the problem, not the beer.
 
How did you change that?

In 1989, we put a cap on the admissible production volumes for a given area. The second step was to put a lot of money into training. We have also been benefitting from the climate change, just as Slovenia, by the way. The grapes have turned out riper in the last 20 years.
 
Are Slovenian wines well known here?

No. Their market presence is insufficient, and Germany is a hot spot. The Italians, French and Spanish push their wines here in Germany, and it’s not easy for everybody else. I would recommend you open up a couple of nice Slovenian restaurants here to bring in Slovenian wines. That’s the easiest way, and it was actually the road to success for the Italians.
 
I don’t think I’ve ever bought a German wine in Slovenia. Is that perhaps because I have never seen a German restaurant there?
 
German cuisine is actually better than its reputation; but we take a different approach. There’s no wine that goes better with Italian antipasti than a German Riesling. Even the Italians agree with that. In France, sweet wines are in demand, and in Spain for example, our Gewürztraminer sells well.
 
There has lately been good cooperation between you and your colleagues from Slovenia. How did this begin?

The contact was established during a wine competition, Mundus vini. It’s an annual event where 6000 wines from more than 40 countries are savoured, and it is attended among others by Slovenian oenologists and scientists.
 
In what ways have you benefitted from this cooperation?

If you want to pursue EU research projects, it is very much welcomed if not only the big ones – Germany, France and Italy – are included. I was impressed by the quality, the research activities and the equipment there. In my view it is important that our students don’t only look at Australia, America and South Africa but that they also see these old wine businesses in Slovenia, Croatia or Georgia.
 
Have you learned something from the Slovenians?

Yes. For instance, they developed the magnetic nanoparticles you can add to yeast. You place a magnet under the champagne bottle and the nanoparticles travel down towards it. This accelerates the stabilization of the wine.