Dee Vine Wines Pours at Christie’s NYC

On January 27th, Christie’s held their auction of Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings, & Watercolors.  On the Monday preceding sale, the Dee Vine Wines had the opportunity to showcase German wines paired withthe excellent menu prepared by Kurt Gutenbrunner of Wallse.  Invited were key clients and collectors.  Our idea was to show how versatile German Rieslings are with not only sweet, but also savory foods.  The 2006 Solter Riesling Sekt (German sparkling wine) from Magnum showed once again how brilliant Sekt is with a variety of fair.  Helmut Solter used Spätlese as a dosage in this cuvée and it is intensely precise and incisive on the palate cutting through the richest of the canapés.  The wiener schnitzel and chestnut soup were particularly good partners with the Sekt.

Continuing with 2006 Rieslings, we showed how different levels of sweetness paired with the savory course of braised veal cheeks and sweetbread ravioli.   We showed a Grosses Gewachs, fruity Kabinett and a fruitier Spätlese.  The 2006 von Beulwitz Kabinett has aged beautifully, especially in magnum.  While a young Spätlese from a year with lots of botrytis like the 2006 Wegeler Bernkasteler Doctor can initially seem too sweet, its focused acidity wiped the palate clean and was actually quite refreshing.  Klaus Peter Keller’s 2006 Hubacker Grosses Gewachs started to open up towards the end of the meal.  With hindsight, we should have had the wine decanted some hours ahead.  Nonetheless, its brilliance and structure shown through.

With the main course of roasted duck and red cabbage, we offered a 2001 Kesseler Rüdesheimer Berg Schlossberg Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) along with two Auslese aged over 30 years.  1976 and 1975 are interesting vintages to taste next to each other.  With1976s usually favored by collectors looking for the influence of botrytis, 1975s are sometimes overlooked.  As good as the 1976 Hessische Bergstrasse was, the 1975 Egon Müller Scharzhofberger Auslese was simply outstanding with a completeness that the Hessische Bergstrasse just missed.

The dishes came out at an amazing pace and before we knew it, the pear streusel with vanilla ice cream was presented to us along with the Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA).  What a perfect end to the evening.  This was one of the rare opportunities I’ve had to taste TBA from Maximin Grünhaus; we usually sell our entire allocation.  It did not disappoint.  While it was sublime, I could also imagine it lasting another 50 years.

Here is the menu from event:

Canapés

Fresh Herbed Spätzle with Rabbit

Wiener Schnitzel

Bratwurst with Riesling Sauerkraut

Chestnut Soup “Viennese Mélange”

House made Potato Chip with Smoked Salmon

2006 Solter Riesling Sekt from Magnum

Dinner Menu

Braised Veal Cheeks and Sweetbread Ravioli with Celery Root Puree and Black Trumpet Mushrooms

2006 Keller Hubacker Grosses Gewachs from Magnum

2006 Erben von Beulwitz Riesling Kabinett from Magnum

2006 Wegeler Bernkasteler Doctor Spätlese from Magnum

Whole Roasted Duck with Red Cabbage and Brioche Dumplings

2001 August Kesseler Rüdesheimer Berg Schlossberg Spätburgunder QbA trocken from Magnum

1975 Egon Müller Scharzhofberger Auslese

1976 Hessische Bergstrasse Heppenheimer Steinkopf Auslese

Dessert

Pear Streusel with Vanilla Ice Cream and Pumpkin Seed Oil

1999 Schloss Johannisberger Rosa-Goldlack Beerenauslese from Magnum

1983 von Schubert Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg, Trockenbeerenauslese

A few days after the event, this entertaining email appeared in my inbox:

Dear Messrs. Thieriot and Han,

I have written to thank Nick Hall for including me among so many distinguished guests at the German Wine Dinner at Christie’s last Monday night, but I cannot resist the temptation to write and tell you about an extraordinary coincidence arising from that occasion.

In 1956 the city fathers of Melbourne, Australia, discovered that there were not nearly enough hotel rooms to accommodate the enormous number of foreign visitors expected at that summer’s Olympic Games. They therefore appealed to the citizens of Melbourne to make available space in suitable private houses in which the overflow of guests could be billeted. My parents, being civic-minded, felt that it might also be educational for their children if they agreed to participate in this exciting initiative, and in due course an enormously tall and friendly German gentleman, a former Olympian and winemaker, took up residence for the duration of the Games. His visit was an enormous success. Thus my parents and grandparents forged a life-long friendship with Dr. Andreas von Schubert of Grünhaus, near Trier.

In 1961 my parents paid a return visit, and Andreas took my parents on a driving tour of West Germany, which coincided exactly with the sudden construction of the Berlin Wall, and required a change of plan in the light of widespread fears that this event might well turn out to be a casus belli between East and West. Fortunately the crisis passed, all was well, and our families continued to stay in touch. For many years at Christmas Andreas sent us Christmas decorations, including on one occasion a beautiful wooden music box, and eventually my parents took me back to visit Grünhaus in 1976 when I was 11 years old. Maximin Grünhaus is therefore the only German vineyard I have ever visited (with its thrilling Roman cellar), but I confess it is also among the very few I could even name, so you can imagine my astonishment and delight last Monday evening when I saw at the bottom of the menu: “Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling TBA 1983, von Schubert”!

Incidentally, it was to poke fun at that system of billeting guests at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics that a rather callow university student devised a sketch for that year’s Law School Revue in which an ordinary housewife offered to the authorities her glorious lower middle-class home in Moonee Ponds. Thus my old friend Barry Humphries created very his own weapon of mass destruction, Mrs. Edna Everage. The rest is history, though of course Edna, now Dame Edna, is still very much with us.

Andreas von Schubert died some years ago, as did our father and, lately, our mother also, but I wonder if Gloria von Schubert is still alive. If by any chance you are ever in touch with Grünhaus, would you be so good as to convey to Dr. Carl von Schubert the warm greetings of the Trumble family, and assure him that his parents’ generous gift of Christmas decorations continues to give excellent annual service in the homes of my brothers and their families in Melbourne, Australia?

With kind regards.

Yours sincerely,

Angus Trumble

And shortly after, a reply from the owner of Dee Vine Wines:

Dear Mr. Trumble,

I cannot thank you enough for this most amusing, intriguing, and indeed, moving account of your connections with the illustrious von Schubert family! I am also thrilled to know that you so highly enjoyed the wine and food event at Christie’s last Monday evening. It was delightful

However, I’ll have you know that I never actually knew Andreas von Schubert, but I do know, and have maintained a steady, and extremely loyal relationship with his son, Carl, since the early 1980s, and continue to foster it to this day. He is an incredibly erudite and affable gentleman who is actually a doctor of a specialized facet of viticulture as it relates to specific soil contents and related geological aspects of vineyards. He is also an avid hunter, and always seems to be attired in tweeds and corduroy trousers as if about to set out upon a shoot.

Over the years, I’ve also had the pleasure of getting to know his family: wife Renate, four children (two sons and two daughters), and numerous house pets; most notably “Philibus” the cantankerous yet nevertheless adorable wire-haired Dachshund who recently passed away. His mother, Gloria, remarkably still lives at the estate, and I believe is presently in her mid nineties, and still fit as a fiddle!

As for this venerable jewel of the Ruwer, the Grunhaus estate itself reigns amongst the finest in the pantheon of great wine-producing properties of the world. I personally rank it shoulder to shoulder with the grand chateaux of Bordeaux and the top echelon domaines of Burgundy, and I concur wholeheartedly, that their cellars are amongst the oldest and most magnificent of any I have ever had the pleasure to visit! In a word, they’re absolutely stunning! As is, for that matter, the 1983 “Abtsberg” Trockenbeerenauslese we had the privilege to taste last Monday! Such purely handcrafted wines are astoundingly rare and amongst the greatest treasures to be found in the entire realm of fine wine. Each and every ethereal sip is an utterly magical experience that lingers not only on the palate, but reverberates in the psyche for years afterwards.

To sum it up in a nutshell, come the words from the title of the famous duet between Osmin and Pedrillo from Mozart’s comic opera, “Die Entführung aus dem Serail”–Vivat Bacchus!!!

Please accept my heartiest thanks for taking the time to relate this truly marvelous story, and if I may, I should like to forward it on to Carl von Schubert, whom I plan to visit in April, as well as post it on our website for our friends and clients to share.

Wishing you a very pleasant weekend, and all the best in 2010!

Dade Thieriot

I am constantly reminded of how small the world is becoming, in wine especially so.

Should you have any questions about the wines from this dinner, please contact me:

frankh@dvw.com

415.398.3838