It was a sunny June afternoon in 2011, and I was pulling into Weingut Wagner-Stempel’s resplendent courtyard for the first time. My future friend, Oliver Müller, was busy pouring wine samples to a number of guests who enjoyed their sips under the merciful shade of a 300-year-old chestnut tree. I introduced myself and I’ll never forget the bewildered expression on Oliver’s face when I told him that I had come from Canada in search of Riesling.
Leave No Beautiful Riesling Behind Part 2: Spreitzer
Despite the respect and adulation that they receive in Germany, Spreitzer's wines are criminally underappreciated in Canada. I've got a few conjectures as to why this might be, all of which involve brothers Andi and Bernd Spreitzer being refreshingly impervious to the wine world’s dubious fashions. On the other hand, they consistently produce excellent Riesling over a wide range of styles and at completely reasonable prices — and what could be more exciting and praiseworthy than that?!?
Leave No Beautiful Riesling Behind!
Nobody lacks self-discipline like us at Metrovino. We make valiant attempts at restraint, but you’d never know it given the fact that we import 80+ disparate German Riesling labels each vintage. Despite its amorphous parameters, every year we encounter phenomenal wines in our travels that don’t fit neatly into our bloated “portfolio”. When a brief encounter with such a wine makes clear that a future without it would be impoverished, empty and meaningless, we import said wine for reasons of emotion — regardless of its lack of glass-pour potential at restaurants or inherent appeal to trophy hunters.
