We lost Nika, our spiritual inspiration and irreplaceable canine family member, in November of 2019. Almost immediately, my wife decided that our cat, Bébert, was suffering acute loneliness from the loss. Nika and Bébert had merely coexisted, but I didn't dissuade my wife from projecting our own sense of emptiness upon the seemingly indifferent cat. By the end of December we would welcome an additional family member into our household.
There's much to love about 2023 German Riesling. The wines possess a breathtaking, spellbinding sense of harmony, albeit in a slightly riper and richer register than the previous two vintages. Happily, this is without the aromatic evidence of warmth embodied by some ‘18s, ‘19s and '20s. The 2023s have stubbornly long finishes, soaring on and on with enchanting harmonic inertia.
Springtime had technically begun but the skies remained obstinately indifferent. I was on a solo woodland retreat to nurture my dominant but neglected introverted side, and had just finished reading a novel of extraordinary breadth and insight. The afternoon, like the morning, was mine to do whatever I wanted, so I bundled up for a leisurely stroll through my isolated, snow-swept environs to digest what I had just read.
One of the most exciting things about tasting through any wine region is hearing about different grower’s tactics to overcome challenges and usher beautiful wines into being. Despite the potentially enormous variation of strategies voiced, each proffered as if any other pursuit would result in abject failure, one can taste countless collections of compelling and delicious wines. However, nobody else that I know who's achieving such high levels of quality with Riesling is doing so through such idiosyncratic methods as Kai Schätzel.
My maternal grandfather was tough, even by the standards of his bygone generation. The eldest son of German immigrants, he grew up on a farm in Lymburn, Alberta where an unflagging work ethic was the motif of his life from the very beginning. Almost 100 years later during this chaotic but sentimental time of year, I find myself thinking of him more than usual.
It had been an unseasonably beautiful October. The nights were cool, not cold, and the days were glorious explosions of vivid autumnal colours and welcome warmth, the low sun emitting enough heat for comfort in T-shirts at midday. With the approach of Halloween, Mike had been fully immersing himself in horror, as he did every year.
