The flavor of dried apricot in wine of Ahr
Discover the of Ahr wines revealing the of dried apricot flavor during the olphactive analysis (nose) and during the gustative analysis (mouth).
Ahr is one of Germany’s least-known and Northernmost wine regions, known for its Pinot Noir reds. It Lies immediately north of the Mosel, and follows the Ahr River in the Final stages of its journey towards its confluence with the Rhein.
One might expect a wine region this far north (50°N) to specialize in white wines – like almost every other cool-Climate wine region. After all, neighboring Mosel and Mittelrhein both clearly favor white wines (around 85 percent).
However Ahr producing around 85 percent red wines, of which around three-quarters are made from Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir). The classic example is brick red in Color and smells of red cherries, Sweetspices and forest floor. Barrel-aging can add spice and savory notes.
Ahr Pinot Noir is now a much more Serious, modern and "international" wine style that it once was.
Until 30 years ago, the wines were often slightly sweet and very pale. Today they are invariably Dry and deeper in color – although still much paler than the inky Pinots found in, say, Central Otago.
Across Germany (most obviously in Pfalz and Baden), assisted by climate change, the popularity of Pinot Noir has been steadily increasing. The wave of interest has carried German Spätburgunder to new heights, and saved from near-extinction the earlier-ripening Pinot Noir clone, Fruhburgunder.
The Francs de Pied (Ungrafted Vines) group, which last met two weeks ago at Pasquet’s Liber Pater winery in the Graves, consists of a growing circle of vignerons who work with ungrafted vineyards planted to native varieties. The list includes Francs de Pied president Loïc Pasquet himself, vice-president Egon Müller (Mosel), and secretary Andrea Polidoro of Cupano (Montalcino) and Contrada Contro (Marche); as well as Gocha Chkhaidze of leading Georgian winery, Askaneli; Thibault Liger-Belair (Bur ...
How’s the weather been this year? Awful. ‘La nature m’écoeure’, one of my wine-growing friends posted on Facebook on 8 April, having been out to look at the frost-crippled shoots on his vines that morning: ‘Nature disgusts me’. It takes a lot to make a wine-grower feel that. He wasn’t alone. Jeremiads echo around the northern hemisphere as 2021 closes. It’s been the year of all the miseries. None suffered more horribly than the growers of Germany’s Ahr valley, where floodwaters caused by the fou ...
I first contributed to Decanter back in November 1988; the hundreds of columns and articles I’ve written since constitute a journey of discovery. I squirm, though, if I’m described as a ‘wine expert’. Whatever wine knowledge we acquire quickly cools, congeals and crusts over, like custard or gravy, as the years pass. The wine world expands at a clip. Every vintage rewrites history. It’s the chance to share discoveries – not just about wines, but about people, places and the act of drinking itsel ...