Je bent hier: Home / Archief voor Links to the Past

A Sweet and Sour Experience: Tasting Uhudler!

Probably every wine country has its secrets: wines that are produced only in hidden corners of the vineyard area, drunk only by the locals. I have come across wines like this in France a few years ago, and in Austria in 2010, during EWBC. And there are undoubtedly much more. These are wines that are not exported, not produced in large quantities, sometime even almost forbidden, but not quite.  And mostly, there is a very interesting history behind these wines.

One such wine – let’s called it X –  I tasted last week, at home, together with a friend who happened to have  a bottle of X in his cellar. When Bernard learned I had heard of X, but not tasted it, he offered to come by and share that bottle together. And so we did.

Wine museum Moschendorf
I first heard about X during the press trip after EWBC 2010 to Südburgenland. We visited the tiny open air wine museum in Moschendorf, close to the Hungarian border. Walking to the tasting room, where we were going to taste some 30 and more wines from Blaufränkisch, from the Eisenberg DAC, we saw the word ‘uhudler’ on a large information panel and also on the walls of some houses. A welcoming sign moreover spoke of Uhudler-Verkostung im Stadel. So uhudler was probably a wine! And that is indeed what the information panel told us. Uhudler is a wine made of what the Austrians call Direktträger: American vines, with American rootstock and all. During the big phylloxera epidemic  of the late nineteenth century, whereby a tiny aphid devasted almost all of Europe’s vineyards by gnawing at the roots of the vines, people tried all kinds of things to be able to keep making wine. It took a while before the final cure was discovered: grafting European Vinifera vines onto American non-Vinifera rootstock. The continent of Northern America has a large array of berry carrying vines, different from the European Vitis Vinifera. These vines go by the name of Vitis Lambrusca, or Vitis Rupestris. And they are immune to the grape louse, phylloxera vastatrix.

[Lees meer...]

Onderwerp: EWBC, Links to the Past, Oostenrijk, Rare druiven, Wijngeschiedenis Tags: , , ,
22 april 2012 door 2 Reacties

Sweet Wines from Rioja

Last year in October I wrote on the sweet wines of Northwestern Spain, the tostados of Ribadavia. In the 17th Century those tostados were exported to a.o. England and were very sought after.  They were made from grapes dried over the winter months, in the house. In the region itself,  these sweet wines were meant to be drunk at weddings and other festivities.

[Lees meer...]

Onderwerp: Links to the Past, Nieuws, Spanje Tags: , , ,
18 maart 2012 door Reageer

Historical Venetian Wine To Be Released Next Week

There once was a time that wine was more or less the only beverage available. Espcially in the cities and towns of medieval Europe, fresh, clean water was not to be trusted as a drink, milk was for children and the elderly. Coffee, tea and soda were not yet around, fruit juices were surely there, but could not be kept for a longer period of time. That left the (light)alcoholic drinks beer and wine. And so lots of cities had vineyards in close vicinity, sometimes even within its walls. Just like (professional) vegetable gardens, who till this day are most often to be found on the outskirts of  town, like in my hometown Utrecht. As to vineyards in the city: Paris and Vienna are well known examples, with vineyards present within its boundaries even to this day.

Recently I heard about Venice having had vineyards too.  On Mazzorbo, one of the islands that dot the lagoon that harbours this venerable city, vineyards have been restored that date back to the 15th century. Even an ancient grape variety has been saved from oblivion, the dorona, related to garganega. Behind the project is a well known prosecco producer from Valdobiadenne, Bisol. Bisol’s 2 ha walled vineyard on Mazzorbo is  called Scarpa Volo.

[Lees meer...]

Onderwerp: Italië, Links to the Past, Nieuws, Rare druiven Tags: , , , ,
7 maart 2012 door 3 Reacties

Renaissance of the Wines of Paris – Ile de France

From the Middle Ages to its glory days in the 18th century, the prized wines of the Ile de France, the Paris region, stocked the cellars of French kings and clergymen and covered over 100,000 acres of land. These wines were also well known in medieval literature, and figure in several poems extolling the virtues of these wines.

The Revolution, vine disease and urbanisation all took their toll, however, with quality plummeting as Parisian vintners lost out to southern wines imported by train. The First World War marked the coup de grace for wine production in the French capital.

[Lees meer...]

Onderwerp: Links to the Past, Nieuws, Wijngeschiedenis Tags: , ,
2 maart 2012 door Reageer

American Wine for American Presidents

In a very informative article at the website of The Wine Spectator, Ben O’Donnell tells us of the preferred wines of Presidents Nixon and Reagan. O’Donnell interviews current White House director of food and beverage Daniel Shanks, who left Napa’s Domaine Chandon to take that post starting in the Clinton administration.

Shanks and O’Donnell give us a glimpse of the wines that are drunk during state dinners, and tell about the change from French wines to American ones in the White House cellars.

Read more in Red Wine, White House

Onderwerp: Links to the Past, Nieuws, USA, Wijngeschiedenis Tags: , ,
29 februari 2012 door Reageer

Links to the Past: Preparing for EWBC2012

 

As of today, Wijnkronieken has a new category of posts, in preparation of the European Wine Bloggers Conference 2012 held in Turkey. The name of the category: Links to the past. This category will focus on the rich history of wine, not only in the Netherlands, but in the whole world.

Why a category in preparation of EWBC2012? Because the theme of this year’s annual conference for wine educators is Sources. As the organisation explains: ‘The choice of Turkey as the host for the conference is particularly exciting for wine lovers, as recent evidence points to areas of Turkey being the original source of domestic vine cultivation and possibly winemaking. Several countries in the region make this claim, and we hope to explore what this ancient lineage can bring to the contemporary wine conversation.’

[Lees meer...]

Onderwerp: EWBC, Links to the Past, Wijngeschiedenis Tags: , ,
29 februari 2012 door Reageer