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Gäubodenvolksfest, Bavarian Beer Festival Extraordinaire!

It’s that time of the year!  Oktoberfest celebrations are happening all over the U.S. and the world.  Of course, the most famous of all beer celebrations occurs in Munich, Germany.  Every year more than 6 million people from all over the world attend this Bavarian fair.

Second only to Oktoberfest is Gäubodenvolksfest, a beer and folk festival held every year in the Bavarian city of Straubing, located about an hour and a half northeast of Munich.  The locals and critics alike claim this festival to be more authentically Bavarian and much friendlier than the famous Oktoberfest.  Much of the reasoning behind this is that the festival in Straubing is full of locals, not the hordes of tourists from around the world who descend on Munich each year.  And that’s exactly what my husband and I, along with a friend, discovered while visiting Germany this summer.

Maximilian I Joseph, the King of Bavaria, founded Gäubodenvolksfest in 1812 as an agricultural festival.  Today it is held every year in mid-August and lasts 11 days. The festival has upheld it’s traditional character beautifully.  Only beers from Straubing and the district Straubing-Bogen are allowed to be served.  Several huge beer tents are packed to the brim with people wearing the traditional Bavarian garb.  Men and boys wear Lederhosen, the leather trousers with suspenders.  The women and girls are seen in the Dirndl dresses, with the wide, long skirts and a corsage, along with a puffy white blouse and a colorful apron.  We were thankful that there are some locals who attend in contemporary apparel, as we had no Lederhosen or Dirndl for ourselves!

There are six different tents, each sponsored by a different beer, which is served in that respective tent.  We started early in the afternoon, grabbing a beer and some food.  I had a big, traditional Bavarian pretzel, and my fellow travelers enjoyed their bratwurst and sauerkraut.  Here we enjoyed a very traditional Polka band.  It was early in the day, but people were drinking and dancing and having the time of their lives.  The servers were carrying huge amounts of food on long trays, or a fistful of gargantuan mugs of beer!

We kept moving from tent to tent, drinking the beer, toasting our fellow partiers, and listening to great bands.  They even had an all girl polka band called Hexen!  My husband and our friend especially enjoyed them!

As the beer flowed, our fellow partiers were delightfully friendly to us and included us in on the fun as we stood on our benches and exclaimed “Prost” as we clinked our humongous one liter glass steins with theirs and looked them in the eyes, as is custom in these parts!

Of course, I had to try one of the offered wines.  Well, I should say that I had to try the one offered wine!  It was a 2010 Müller-Thurgau from Franken.  This wine region is at the edge of northern Bavaria and is not known for elegant and complex wines, as are other parts of Germany.  The weather is habitually severe and this region often suffers from spring frosts.  The amount of fruit is frequently very limited from year to year.  Their wine is well loved by the Bavarians, though, and little gets to the United States.

One thing that Franken DOES have that no other wine region has is the bocksbeutel.  This is the squat, plump vessel in which Franken wine is bottled.  Literally translated, “bocksbeutel” is a goat scrotum!

I finished my wine and went back to beer!  We drank.  We clinked and shouted Prost!  We danced with new friends!  And then we walked back to our hotel!

If you’d like to visit the “real deal” Bavarian fair and beer festival next year, check them out at: http://www.ausstellungsgmbh.de/?lang=de&site_id=229

And remember; book your room early so you won’t need to drive!

My October Wine of the Month

Elyse Winery
Jacob Franklin
#33 “Mon Chou”
Napa Valley
2006

Ray Coursen (former head winemaker for Whitehall Lane) and his wife Nancy founded Napa Valley’s Elyse Winery in 1987.  Jacob Franklin is the “brother” brand of Elyse Winery, which is very appropriate as Elyse is the name of their daughter and Jacob Franklin the name of their son.

I had heard of this winery’s Zinfandel for years before first visiting.  I don’t know why it took me a few Napa excursions before setting up a tasting appointment, but boy I’m glad I finally did.  They do a lot more than Zinfandel now, and their wines are some of the best in the valley.  I am a member of VERY few wine clubs (3 to be exact), but I’m a member here!

As if that’s not enough, I’m also a lover of all things French and it seems as if they may be as well.  They name some of their wines with French sayings.  This month’s Wine of the Month “Mon Chou” literally means “my cabbage”, which is a French endearment expressing “My Sweetheart” or “My Darling”!

The Wine – Jacob Franklin’s “Mon Chou” is a Bordeaux blend.  The 2006 is a blend of 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Cabernet Franc, with the balance being mostly Merlot and a splash of Petit Verdot.  The nose is very aromatic with black cherry, black raspberry, some coffee and a hint of cedar.  The palate has delicious chocolate covered cherry along with some nice earthiness.  This lush wine is beautifully balanced and has a nice long finish.  The 2006 Mon Chou is a very good wine and definitely worth seeking out!

My Experience Visiting the Winery – Elyse Winery is by appointment only, which really makes the experience personal and a lot of fun.  I have visited here several times now, and John has always given us a fabulous tasting.  He is extremely knowledgeable and spends the perfect amount of time on each wine.  Plus he’s a really nice guy.  The tasting room is small and intimate.  It’s a far cry from the big, commercialized tasting rooms that many people imagine when they think of Napa.   I always advise my friends and clients that this is a must-hit winery to visit!

The Journey – Elyse’s tasting room is a bit off of the beaten path, but very easy to find.  Right off of the major drag Highway 29, Hoffman Lane is an adorable little country road.  Surrounded by vineyards, you’d never know you were in the heart of Napa.

Visit their website at:  www.elysewinery.com

International Grenache Day!

It’s International Grenache Day!  What better way to celebrate than to open a bottle of Grenache based wine!

Grenache is a varietal that thrives in hot, dry conditions.  This creates a lot of sugar, which in turn creates high alcohol.  Grenache is rarely bottled by itself as a single varietal.  It is usually blended with other grapes, adding complexity and alcohol strength.

Originating in Spain (where it is known as Garnacha and is blended to make the prestigious wines of Priorat), this varietal is also predominant in the South of France.  It is the main grape used in the famous southern Rhone Valley wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, as well as Gigondas and Vacqueyras.   It also makes distinctive rosés!  Grenache is also found in California and Australia, as well as the Italian island of Sardinia where it is called Cannonau.

I love the Rhone Valley and therefore have quite a few Grenache based wines in my cellar, but decided to open one that wouldn’t break the bank and has seen a few years in the bottle.  (I have some ’07 and 09 Châteauneuf-du-Papes and Gigondas’ that still need some time!)  So, I opened a 2006 Perrin & Fils Les Christins Vacqueyras in the $25 range.  I selected wisely!

This ruby colored wine is a blend of 75% Grenache and 25% Syrah.  The expressive nose has cherry, clove, tobacco and barnyard.  The palate has the cherry, along with some plum, pepper and a nice earthiness.  The tannins are soft and the finish is medium long with some mellow spiciness.

This wine has that Old World quality, but is very approachable with a lot of fruit upfront.  New World wine lovers will certainly enjoy this wine as well!

So, if you’re ready to crack open a bottle to celebrate International Grenache Day, have at it!  This wine is a winner!

 

2010 Quinta do Crasto Branco Douro

It’s still hot here in Florida, so I thought that it would be appropriate to share a fun, tangy white wine from Portugal that I tasted the other night.

The 2010 Quinta do Crasto Branco from Douro is a blend of 45% Rabigato, 40% Gouveio and 15% Roupeiro.  It is perfect as an aperitif, or with some light finger foods or seafood.

This straw colored wine has a nice balance of citrus and a touch of tropical fruit on the nose.

The palate is fresh with nice minerality.  Again, it is balanced with the fruit and good acidity.

It will last another year or two, but is drinking beautifully now, so I suggest drink up!

At under $20 this is a fun wine to drink while watching the sunset before dinner with friends!

K Syrah

I’m a huge lover of Syrah!  While the Rhone Valley of France is where this varietal first emerged, it is now well known in New World wine regions as well.  It was one of the first varieties imported for planting in Australia, where it is called Shiraz.  Yep, it’s the same grape.  Many wine lovers don’t realize that Shiraz is indeed Syrah!

There are many different styles of Syrah.  In the northern Rhone Valley it is often blended with a bit of Viognier.  In the southern Rhone it is an ingredient in the fabulous and famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines.  In Australia, Cabernet Sauvignon is often used as a blending partner.  California and Washington are also making some wonderful examples of this fabulous varietal, often using 100% Syrah (as they do in the Cornas region of France), making the wines dark, inky and pretty darned tannic.

A winery doing wonderful things with Syrah is K Vintners out of Walla Walla, Washington.  Charles Smith is the owner and winemaker, and is also owner and winemaker of Charles Smith Wines.

A couple of nights ago I cracked open a bottle of his 2009 K Syrah from the Pheasant Vineyard in the Wahluke Slope AVA.   This aromatic wine has lots of red fruit, especially raspberry and currant, on the nose.  Some lavender and violet are also present.  The smooth, velvety palate is rich with cherry and the raspberry and currant, along with some wonderful porky nuances.  The finish is nice and long.  Decant this for an hour or two to let the tannins settle down, or cellar it for up to at least a decade.  This is a very yummy wine.

Charles Smith is one interesting wine guy!  He definitely takes the stuffiness out of wine.  Originally from the Sacramento, California area, he spent nine years managing rock bands and concert tours throughout Europe.  His passion for wine was developed while on the road with such groups as the famous Danish duo The Ravonettes.  He returned to the states and landed in the Seattle area, where he opened a wine store.  He discovered Walla Walla on a road trip in 1999 and moved there to start making wine.  He looks a little like Sammy Hagar, and his wines rock!

While visiting the Walla Walla wine region a couple of years ago, I paid a visit to the tasting room at Charles Smith Wines.  It is located right in the heart of the city and is a really fun spot to taste.  The place is huge, with exposed pipes, wooden rafters and great brick walls.  This tasting room truly seems to be a reflection of the winemaker’s persona.  It was a blast listening to music while tasting some of their awesome wines.

So grab a K Syrah, turn up the volume and pop the cork!  It’s time to party!!!

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