Garagiste

• By Jon Rimmerman
  10/7/2009 (link)

  (BUNCHEN Spatlese) 2007 Saar Dear Friends, I told you a few months ago that we may be able to get a second parcel of the 2007 Bunchen Spatlese from Germany and it has just landed. If you recall, this is the "co-op" wine we produced (co-operative with our email list members, not purchased from the co-op) and it has proven to be very popular. I pulled a bottle a few hours ago, chilled it, and am thoroughly enjoying it as I write. The wine is singing right now and drinking beautifully (Thanksgiving anyone?). I am also tasting the 2007 Bunchen Kabinett, which appears slightly muted and in-between stages to me (although still very enjoyable - I'm just knit-picking) - I may let this rest for a period or try one every few months to observe its development - I will report back as I watch its progress. The 2007 Spatlese is a different story - it is in a great spot right now. The lime-imbued Saar aromatics and lightly stony/citric fruit-wash cover the palate with unforced flavor. There is nothing ostentatious about this wine - it is a joy to taste. Refreshing rather than cloying, the 2007 Bunchen is not what one typically thinks of as Spatlese (it drinks more like a Kabinett due to its high-elevation site). The intent from the beginning was to produce a low-pradikat/low-sugar rendition of Spètlese, the way wine used to be in the 1970s, with a vintage such as 1975 the inspiration. The 2007 shows this can be done while still delivering a mouthful of feminine fruit and finely sifted rock that lingers. From a high-altitude vineyard in the Saar (acquired when a storied Saar vintner retired a few years ago - you can use your own imagination), there's not much to say - I could drink this several times per week and always find something enjoyable and new to discover. Produced by one of the Mosel's most famous winemakers, the Bunchen Spatlese over-delivers in an elegant fashion. While not every wine region has listened to the consumer's desire for value, the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer has. You can still buy a top-caliber single-vineyard Spatlese such as this without having to cut corners. As I've said in the past, the fruit from this vineyard would have gone toward a Spatlese in the $23-26 range but, by eliminating the extraneous middle-men, it is much less. You can't keep a good vineyard down and, in 2007, this vineyard soared. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED as a top value that expresses its filigreed pedigree with a poise typically reserved for more expensive entrants. This wine is directly from the source with perfect provenance: 2007 Bunchen Mosel Spatlese (Saar) (listed as "Mosel" to get around regulations, it is actually Saar) Thank you, Jon Rimmerman Garagiste Seattle, WA Germ7388

• By Jon Rimmerman
  12/4/2008 (link)

  (BUNCHEN Spatlese Mosel) Bƒnchen Dear Friends, When I first drove by one of the vineyards for this new winery I was wowed - I didn't know what was going on up there but I knew it was going to be special. I've seen enough in this crazy hobby of ours to know when that little bell goes off in my head, when something has just a bit more fairy dust sprinkled on it than the rest - this was one of those moments (sort of like the first time I drove around the western Oakville bench back in the mid-1980s and it was obvious the special site being cultivated was a cut above - that site ended up as Bill Harlan's). This new project is not in Napa, it's in Germany and the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer to be specific and (in a country that does not accept change very easily) this winery is going to make waves in a hurry... Bƒnchen - what I believe is one of the more intriguing new labels in German wine in a long time. Typical German producers (whether they are Fritz Haag or Willie Schaeffer) produce wine from land near their domaine - a vintner based in Urzig produces wine from vineyards that surround his/her family home, etc. Likewise a producer in the Saar, produces wine only from vineyards in the Saar - that's the way it's been done for centuries and few have challenged that tradition. Not so here - Bunchen is intent on producing the best wine from the best vineyard, whether it's near Saarburger-Rausch or Oberhauser Brucke. This fact alone makes this project a candidate for slander by their neighbors but quality does not lie and few will deny that Bunchen is producing Riesling to rival anyone's...and they are doing it as naturally as they can... ....all at prices that are up to half of their competitors. Now people are paying attention. How do I know so much about this? Because the winery is yours. (or more appropriately, it belongs in a sense to all of us) I was so impressed with the vineyard material I witnessed, I went out and secured the rights to this project and decided to produce wine that would be "owned" by our customer base - the profit on each bottle sold would be put back into a coffer that will drive down the price of each subsequent bottling (the opposite of the norm where multiple tiers of distribution are involved in driving the price up and long-term plans have price increases already in place years in advance). Profits from the year and from the sale of the Bunchen wines will be invested in the next vintage which will enable us to offer co-op style pricing on 1er quality wine. While you may not love Riesling (and you may say "I want my dollars to go toward Cote Rotie" or something else) - stay tuned, if you enjoy this project, more is on the way - one by one, from various regions of the world - all with the motto of re-investing any profits into the project or to help secure the next project in another area. In other words, this is not really a money making venture for us, it is about giving back to our customer base for years of support and to stay on the threshold of the wine trade. We make it a priority to pioneer whenever we can and your patronage is not only appreciated but now you can actually see the results in your pocket with the first release of the Bunchen label. In addition, the more everyone buys, the cheaper the next release will be and so on. Revolutionary? I believe so. Retail suicide? Maybe, but everyone knows we've never considered ourselves to be retailers so its par for the course. There's no angle here (so please don't make one up or try to figure out where the angle is) - it just is and I hope everyone can accept that. So what about the wine? This is an instance where my years of toiling the wine road have led to the belief that association with Garagiste is something very positive - I approached several of Germany's best vintners and all of them thought the time had come for a project like this. In the end, we've hired one of the most famous winemakers in the Mosel (if not the most famous name in all of Germany) to produce the wines. With a goal from the get-go of producing wine in a consumer direct way, Bunchen will have a no-frills web site where you can watch the progress of the vintage with photos and digital clips on the go - more on that when we get the site up and running (there's no site yet but the URL is www.bunchenwein.com). In addition, I've cut out a myriad of red tape with this project and the wines will be at your doorstep as quickly as we can get them here from Europe. My original impetus for making our own Riesling was the increase in sugar levels found nearly everywhere in Germany over the last 5-7 years - I desire Riesling that is lithe and mysterious but also pure and full of the minerality that can only come from this region. The Bunchen label will pledge to show vintage, terroir and a light hand - all elements of the general Garagiste mantra. This is Riesling for Riesling's sake not sugar's sake - we will err on the lowest side of each pradikat level to showcase the demure, filigreed elegance of the varietal and soil - what most Riesling fans tell me they wish for (i.e more stone and less glop). As a debut, 2007 couldn't have come at a better time and (as most of you know) I am not very easy to please - I already rejected half the finished wine for the Spatlese as it was merely excellent and not excellent enough. The final, bottled 2007 Bunchen Mosel Spatlese is from a very steep, high-altitude vineyard in the Saar (from a vineyard that became available due to grower relationships, retirement of the owner, etc) - it is truly a beautiful wine alive with a lacy, racy character that is finely cut from the hillside. Our winemaker tried to capture the spirit of the vintage and of the terroir and he accomplished this with the most delicate hand. This is a waif-like dancer that seduces with each sip giving its sifted stone and lemon essence to all that will partake. There is a lot of material here in a nervous frame which leaves one with the impression that this is Spatlese with the citric impression of Kabinett. The aromatics and finish are very pure, with a gorgeous stone character that is refreshing, never heavy and just about right as an aperitif - a classic, bright, 2007 Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Spatlese in one of the best vintages for Kabinett and Spatlese in years (the best since 2001). This is certainly a wine we can be proud to mark as our debut and I would welcome its appearance on my dinner table any night of the week. What about distribution? I've had numerous national importers/distributors contact me about securing the rights to this project but we will leave it in-house for now. If an arrangement comes along where you can benefit even further (and there is enough wine for a national distributor), then I will consider it. With that in mind, the first few vintages of this wine are not going to be widely available as very little was produced. There you go - a wine to feel good about not only from a quality perspective but for your involvement in its production (even though you didn't know it was happening) . So, go ahead - open a bottle and brag a little to your friends - after all, you made this happen...at some of the lowest prices possible for the quality level. This shipment is directly from the cellars at Bƒnchen - it is on the water now and will arrive in early 2009. 2007 Bƒnchen Spatlese (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) Thank you, Jon Rimmerman Garagiste Seattle, WA Germ8010