One of the best times of my life was the year I spent studying in Freiburg, Germany’s “sunniest” city, according to the slogan. I drank a lot of wine there, and I must say little of it was any good. But then what can you expect for $4 a bottle?

It was thus with intrigue and delight that I received the news from the sommelier at Residenz Heinz Winkler that they had a 2011 Weingut Landmann Sauvignon Blanc from Freiburg by the glass. A German Sauvignon Blanc? From my own little Freiburg?

I’ve been seeing a surprising number of Sauvignon Blanc-based wines here in Germany on this trip. They’re becoming quite the fashion, according to one winemaker I spoke with, especially after the hot vintage of 2003. It also helps that German wine law now allows Sauvignon Blanc to receive a Qualitätswein classification.

Sunny Freiburg certainly came through with this Sauvignon Blanc. It had a soft, green aroma with some stone, soft fruit, and subtle but pointy acids. It wasn’t especially big, but it was focused and it held my interest from start to finish.

So many interesting things I’ve tasted so far, and I haven’t even made it to a wine region yet!

I’m winding my way through Bavaria at the moment, and what a lovely place! Mountains, forests, charming little towns… It’s idyllic.

And of course, I’ve already found all sorts of exciting things to drink. I’ll post postcards of my favorites whenever I get the chance. Here is Postcard #1:

Munich isn’t all about beer. At the Pfalzer Residenz Weinstube, a wine bar dedicated to the renowned Pfalz region, I sampled this memorable 2008 Erpolzheimer Kieselberg Grauburgunder (Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris) Auslese, made by the Winzergenossenschaft Kallstadt. What a mouthful, both in terms of pronunciation and flavor.

This remarkable wine from Kallstadt (just north of Bad Dürkheim) had a rich gold color and an aroma of green apples and spicy pineapple. It tasted even better than it smelled, with rich, sweet fruit and a lush, caramelly texture, balanced by incredibly lively, gingery spice. Zow.

I asked the waiter if he’d sampled the wine. He replied, with some apprehension, that he had. “Ah good — it’s really delicious,” I exclaimed.

“Do you think so? It’s not really to my taste…”

Leave it to a German waiter to rain on my parade. Yes, I do think so. The wine is wonderful. Punkt.

At last, crocuses are poking their colorful little heads through the dirt, robins are bouncing along the sidewalks, and people walking outside have expressions other than a pained grimace. Spring has finally arrived, and in celebration of the season, I think I drink is in order.

Here are five bright, springy, and unusual wines sure to banish any lingering winter lethargy which might still be gumming up your system:

1. DEUTSCHER SEKT: Frankly, most Sekt, a German sparkling wine, tends to be unpleasant, with uninspiring flavors and bubbles the size of my big toe. That’s because most Sekt is made from bulk fruit grown outside Germany. Deutscher Sekt, on the other hand, is made with German fruit, likely Riesling, that tends to be of much higher quality. Deutscher Sekt tends, therefore, to be much more drinkable, and dare I even say delicious. The Dr. Loosen Sparkling Riesling, for example, has a fruity/floral nose, elegant bubbles and sweet fruit balanced by zesty acids. Available at Binny’s for $13.

2. SAVENNIÈRES: Because of this appellation’s favorable location on south-facing Loire hillsides and the low maximum yields allowed, Savennières produces “the world’s greatest dry Chenin Blanc,” according to The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia. If you, like me, can rarely afford to drink the world’s greatest anything, this wine is for you. Because it doesn’t have a lot of name recognition, prices tend to be very low in relation to the quality of the wine. I recently sampled a 2008 Domaine du Closel ”La Jalousie” that I described as “Rich, spicy and tightly focused — sheer delight.” But I’ve never had a Savennières I didn’t like, so don’t worry if you can’t find this specific example. Expect a bottle to cost $20-$25 in a shop.

3. MOSCHOFILERO: If you tend to prefer your whites to be aromatic and dry rather than rich and spicy, seek out wines made from this marvelous Muscat-like Greek variety. Whole Foods carries the excellent Voyatzis Wineries Kyklos Moschofilero, for example, which is a smashing value for $12 or $13. Of the 2011 vintage, I wrote, “After a slight prickle on the tongue, flavors of ripe pears and apples led to limey acids, a brief pop of white pepper and just a touch of limestone.” If you can’t find this specific Moscofilero, look for one from the Peloponnese’s high plateau of Mantinía, where the elevation keeps the vineyards cool enough, allowing this late-ripening variety time to fully develop. (Or just ask your wine shop for a recommendation.)

4. ANYTHING BY MASSAYA: I’ve had very good luck with this Lebanese winery’s entry-level bottlings. The red Massaya Classic – a blend of 60% Cinsault, 20% Cabernet and 20% Syrah — is perfect for a party, with big, ripe fruit and a black-pepper kick at the end. The white Massaya Blanc is also a blend. Familiar varieties Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc each account for 15% of the wine, with the remaining 70% evenly divided between Clairette (one of the 13 varieties allowed in Châteauneuf-du-Pape), and Obeidi, an indigenous Lebanese grape. This wine was a bit viscous but balanced with juicy acids. When I tasted the 2009, I wrote, “The ancient flavors of honey, wood and resin stirred a desire to experience the terroir — to see the… Bekaa Valley for myself.” (The Massaya Blanc induced me to write one of my more emotional and sentimental posts.)

5. MÜLLER-THURGAU from ALTO ADIGE or OREGON: The Oxford Companion to Wine doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to this cross of Riesling and Madeleine-Royale, describing the wines made from it as “fat, flaccid… too often with a slight suspicion of rot… extremely dull, flabby.” And it’s true, this humble variety doesn’t tend to excel in its German homeland. Transplant it to more favorable, climes, however, and suddenly you’ve got something worth drinking. Here’s how famed wine critics Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher described a Kofererhof Müller-Thurgau from Italy’s Alto Adige region: “Flinty, with some melons and dirt but brighter than we had expected. Earthy but not heavy, with real vitality. Surprisingly juicy, with some white pepper.” I discovered a tasty  2009 Montinore Estate Müller-Thurgau from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, which costs between $13 and $17. Ripe pear and apple flavors were balanced with a bit of prickle on the tongue, and tart acids pulled it together for the finish. I’d avoid German Müller-Thurgau, but if you see one from elsewhere, especially Alto Adige, ignore the protestations of your sommelier and give it a try.

Sometimes it pays to drink odd, and sometimes it doesn’t. Every now and then, despite my best efforts, I buy something that is simply not to my taste. In some cases, there’s no way I could have predicted that the wine wouldn’t be to my liking, but often, as in this instance, I probably could have figured it out before I plunked down $14. As I looked more closely at the label of the wine in question, I discovered a major red flag, a red flag I ignored at my peril. If you prefer your wine on the dry side, or at least balanced, you’ll want to read on.

Germany produces great seas of white wine, but the rosy-skinned, highly perfumed Gewürztraminer variety accounts for a relative drop in that Riesling-dominated ocean. According to my 2006 edition of The Oxford Companion to Wine, Gewürztraminer vines occupy only about 2,000 acres of German vineyards, as compared to over 51,000 acres devoted to Riesling. Because of its relative rarity, and because I recently had a magnificent German Gewürztraminer by Wasenweiler, I felt a thrill of excitement when I discovered a bottle of affordable German Gewürztraminer at Binny’s.

I snapped up the $14 bottle of 2010 G & M Machmer Bechtheimer Gewürztraminer Spätlese from the Rheinhessen region. It noted a town on its label (Bechtheim) and indicated that it was estate bottled, which gave me confidence in its quality (never mind that I had no idea where the town was).

Had I paid the slightest attention to the back label, I might have noticed a warning sign. Only 10.5% of the wine was alcohol. That relatively low percentage indicates that less of the grapes’ sugars were converted into alcohol, resulting in a sweeter wine. I don’t mind sweet wines necessarily, but I do want them to be balanced. Balance, unfortunately, was not one of the Machmer Bechtheimer Gewürztraminer Spätlese’s strong points.

The wine had the pleasant tropical fruit aroma I expect from a Gewürztraminer, along with something intriguingly green. Its syrupy texture was leavened with a bit of pétillance, but its sweet, almost flabby apple flavor managed to sharpen up only at the very end, when it tightened into some tartness on the finish. The acids made more of an effort to appear when I paired the wine with some roast pork and homemade spätzle, but this wine lacked the spicy raciness I’ve come to love in well-made Gewürztraminers.

Lesson learned. A village name on a German wine label might be seductive, but from now on, I’m always going to check that alcohol content. The higher it is, the drier the wine is likelier to be. I’m sure there are exceptions to this rule, but if you find a Gewürztraminer or Riesling that is less than 11% alcohol, I’d suggest putting it back on the rack and trying something else.

SUMMARY

2010 G & M Machmer Bechtheimer Gewürztraminer Spätlese: Appealing aromas, but overly sweet and a bit flabby, tightening up only at the very end.

Grade: C

Find It: I purchased this wine for $14 at Binny’s.

Ihringen

Baden will always have a special place in my heart. This extravagantly beautiful ex-duchy in Germany’s far southwest was the first (and only) wine region where I’ve actually lived. From my base in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, the beguiling capital of the Black Forest, I remember striking out on my bicycle along unpaved paths to villages like Staufen, nestled at the foot of hillside vineyards leading up to a ruined castle. Some friends and I even biked across the Rhein River to Colmar in the Alsace region; I love that my first entry into France was by bicycle rather than airplane.

Some of my Mitstudenten gathered for a 10-year reunion in Freiburg back in 2009, and in between visits to our dorms and a favorite Biergarten or two, we took a train to Ihringen, an important wine village in the Vulkanfelsen (“volcanic cliffs”) section of the Kaiserstuhl, just across the river from the Alsace. This is a “first-class wine district,” according to The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia, and indeed, we tasted some lovely things at Wasenweiler, a cooperative winery we toured.

Despite Baden’s many fine wines, there’s a very good chance you’ve never actually tasted anything from this region. Even Binny’s, one of the largest wine stores in the country, carries precisely zero wines from Baden. Because of the marketing success of the massive Zentralkellerei Badischer Winzergenossenschaften (ZBW), almost all exports out of Baden are “well-made, but rather basic, characterless wine,” as the Encyclopedia notes. But an array of smaller producers makes very high-quality wines, as the Encyclopedia and I agree, and it’s a shame we can’t find them outside of Germany (or even outside Baden, for that matter).

I brought back one bottle from Wasenweiler, a 2007 “Kreuzhalde” Gewürztraminer Spätlese. It’s quite a mouthful, both in terms of pronunciation and flavor. “Kreuzhalde” is the name of the specific vineyard, a hilly, sunny site that requires harvesting by hand (you can see a photo here). “Spätlese” refers to the level of the fruit’s ripeness at the time it was picked, as measured by the amount of sugar in the grapes. It translates basically as “late harvest,” but it falls in the rough middle of the scale, between Kabinett and Auslese. And Gewürztraminer is the wonderful grape variety, which The Oxford Companion to Wine calls “Deeply colored, opulently aromatic and fuller bodied than almost any other white wine.”

And so it was. The Wasenweiler looked honey-gold in the glass, and the aroma! A heady honeysuckle perfume. But my worries that this wine had aged too long were only finally dispelled when I gave it a try. The acids remained mostly intact, ensuring balance and liveliness. It tasted exotic and spicy, with flavors of ripe pear, cinnamon, ginger, jasmine and incense, yet it was surprisingly dry. It stood up quite well to a dinner of vegetarian choucroute (sauerkraut cooked with veggies, spices and wine) and Käsespätzle (noodle-like dumplings with caramelized leeks, butter and Emmentaler cheese).

What a wonderful reminder of that sunny day in Ihringen, when we got semi-lost on the way to the winery and wandered for a while along vineyards and well-tended gardens. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that wines from Baden are so hard to find. Now, whenever I have the chance to drink one, it’s a truly special experience, bringing me right back to that glorious piece of German countryside. It makes me hunger for a return trip, and it reminds me how lucky I am to have lived there for a time.

And somehow, it’s reassuring to know that there are still some things you can get only by traveling to the source.

I know I claimed to be done with rosé for the season, but I had one on my shelf too tempting to leave unopened until the spring: A 2011 Reichsrat von Buhl Pinot Noir Rosé from Germany’s Pfalz region. I remember when I saw it on the shelf at Binny’s. A Pinot Noir from Germany would be odd enough on its own, but a Teutonic Pinot Noir rosé? That’s unusual and obscure gold.

According to The World Atlas of Wine, the Pfalz, a region between Saarbrücken and the Rhein, is “today arguably [Germany's] most exciting wine region… famous for an increasing number of seriously ambitious individual wine producers.” Von Buhl makes its wines in Deidesheim, a Pfalz town surrounded, if the Atlas is to be believed, by “excellent” and “exceptional” vineyards. This is the southern end of the Mittelhaardt, long known for producing some of Germany’s finest Rieslings, with “succulent honeyed richness and body, balanced with thrilling acidity.”

But Pinot Noir? This thin-skinned variety, notoriously susceptible to rot, does surprisingly well in the Pfalz, which is “Germany’s sunniest, driest region,” according to the Atlas. Since the vineyards receive only about 16 inches of rainfall a year, mildew and rot tend not to be a problem. And if you look at map, you’ll see that the Pfalz (also known as the Palatinate) is not too far from Burgundy, home to some of the best Pinot Noirs in the world.

I’m not sure the Pinots of the Pfalz quite reach those lofty heights — that’s for another blog post — but I can tell you that the Reichsrat Pinot Noir Rosé was no insipid White Zinfandel. It had a honeydew aroma mixed with something a little spicy, and the melon notes continued onto the palate. A blitz of sharp, limey acids blasted the fruit out of the way, leading to a spicy finish. There was a prickle on the tongue as well — a hint of bubbles. And indeed, the von Buhl website notes that this wine ”is actually a product of [their] sparkling wine production.”

This rosé isn’t “fun,” exactly. It’s not a wine I would serve at a pool party. It demands attention. But paired with an Asian “salad” of wheat berries, beef, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, carrots, red peppers, garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil, it worked beautifully. The acids rounded out, becoming more orangey than limey, and the wine felt bigger, rounder, and, most interestingly, smokier.

If you’re hankering for a rosé this autumn or winter, the von Buhl would be a great choice.

SUMMARY

2011 Reichsrat von Buhl Pinot Noir Rosé: Verging on sparkling, with melony fruit and sharp, racy acids. Excellent with food. Chill well in the refrigerator.

Grade: B+

Find It: I must admit I don’t recall what I spent on this bottle, and it’s not available on Binny’s website as of this posting. I did a quick search online and found a number of stores selling it; the lowest price I found was $18.

The first time I heard of Pinot Meunier was back in 2004, when I visited the Pommery Champagne caves in Reims. There I learned that it is one of three grapes allowed to be used in Champagne blends (Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are the others). According to “common wisdom,” The Oxford Companion to Wine somewhat dubiously notes, “Meunier contributes youthful fruitiness to complement Pinot Noir’s weight and Chardonnay’s finesse.” But though we tasted Blanc de Blancs (100% Chardonnay) and Blanc de Noirs (100% Pinot Noir), we never tasted a 100% Pinot Meunier Champagne. Even then, long before Odd Bacchus was even a teeny glimmer of an idea, I was most intrigued.

In the intervening years, I’ve never forgotten about Pinot Meunier, especially once I discovered that it occasionally did appear as a varietal wine. Perhaps three or four times, I’ve even seen Pinot Meunier on a wine list or in a shop, but I never got up the courage to order it. It tended to be expensive, and I didn’t want to risk it, especially if I had to select a wine for the table in a restaurant.

Finally, at Binny’s on Marcey, I broke through the fear and plunked down $20 for a bottle of German Pinot Meunier. I mean, if anyone could make a great red wine from Pinot Meunier, it would be the Germans, right?

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Try as I might, I’ve never been a fan of Sekt, Germany’s sparkling wine. Almost ever time I’ve tried it, Sekt has lacked any grace whatsoever, with huge, clumsy bubbles and one-note, unexciting flavors. My German heritage has not been able to overcome my natural, human distaste for the stuff. In researching this post, I felt vindicated by most sources I checked.

Germany produces just under half a billion bottles of Sekt each year, compared with about 250 million bottles coming out of Champagne. With that production level, it’s impossible to maintain a high level of quality. But then, if The Oxford Companion to Wine is to be believed, “The average Sekt consumer buys a branded wine, and is interested neither in its method of production…nor in the origin of the base wine.” In fact, some 85-90% of Sekt is produced with fruit grown outside Germany, coming from Italy or goodness knows where in the E.U.

For some reason, Sekt has a “peculiarly domestic appeal,” The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia dryly notes, “that sparkling wine drinkers in most international markets cannot comprehend, whether they are used to Champagne or New World bubbly.” Perhaps that’s why “foreign markets represent barely 8 percent of sales.”

Despite my dislike of Sekt, I decided to give it one more try. I was browsing the sparkling wine aisle at Binny’s when I noticed a bottle of Dr. Loosen Sparkling Riesling. One of the finest Rieslings I’ve tasted was a Dr. Loosen, so I decided what the heck, I’ll take a risk. If nothing else, I’ll save it for the end of a party and foist it on some half-drunk guests.

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I’ve been excited to try more Scheurebe ever since I had an Austrian Beerenauslese version (Beerenauslese indicates a very, very high level of ripeness in the grapes). This variety intrigues me; according to The Oxford Companion to Wine, it’s “the one early 20th-century German crossing that deserves attention from any connoisseur.” But what constitutes that crossing is a bit of a mystery.

Dr. Georg Scheu intended to cross Silvaner with Riesling, in order to produce a more productive version of Riesling (according to the Oxford Companion) or to produce a superior version of Silvaner (according to Wikipedia). Let us hope it was the first, because DNA analysis in the 1990s discovered that the cross has no Silvaner in it whatsoever. The Riesling is there, but the other parent in the cross has yet to be determined. Some speculate that it’s a wild variety Dr. Scheu had been experimenting with. The noble Riesling crossed with some sort of untamed table grape? Gott in Himmel!

Whatever he ended up crossing, Scheurebe (SHOI-ray-beh) seems to work quite well, though only if allowed to thoroughly ripen. The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia warns that Scheurebe “is not very pleasant at Qualitätswein level, but develops a beautiful aromatic character at higher levels of Prädikatswein.” The Oxford Companion agrees, calling it “distinctly unappetizing if picked too early.” But when handled properly, the Oxford Companion continues, Scheurebe can do a fine job in reflecting the specifics of its terroir.

I hoped for the best with 2010 Louis Guntrum Scheurebe Qualitätswein from Rheinhessen, the sandy terroir south of Mainz for which Scheurebe was developed in the first place. It didn’t have the ripeness level recommended by any of my sources, but In Fine Spirits, the wine shop where I found this wine, almost never steers me wrong. I needed something German to pair with the Beethoven playing in Grant Park one evening, and brought it along.

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