Wine: Klenert Cuvée Rot

This is the fifth wine in the online wine tasting with David Klenert. It's a red cuvée made from Dornfelder, Spätburgunder and Lemberger. This is the only wine which made David talk emotionally. It's obviously his favourite wine. He saved the best till last. His exact words were:

"Einfach ein Super-Wein. Das ist optimal. Rotwein, vegan produziert, zu einem geilen Steak. Megagut!"

translated: It's a super wine. It's just perfect. A vegan red wine with a great steak. Fantastic!

What was interesting for me is the way he prepared the wine. This was the last wine in the tasting, but he opened it at the beginning. He poured the wine into a glass and put it on the side for 90 minutes. After this he poured the wine into a second glass to drink it. He said that a good red wine needs to breathe. Optimally, the wine should be poured into a decanter at least an hour before drinking it. It's also possible to pour it into a glass if it's not expected that the whole bottle will be drunk at once.

I've never drunk red wine like this. Maybe I should try it next time I drink a bottle at home. The only time I've ever used a decanter was at a small pizzeria in Stuttgart that I used to visit. If you ordered a glass of wine it was served in a decanter for you to pour yourself.

This is a very dry wine, much drier than I'm used to from Baden wines, but it still has a fruity taste. David Klenert has every right to be proud of his creation.

This wine has also won an award. It was given 89 points by judges in the category of mixed wines. This is evidently a good score, based on David Klenert's reaction. He admires the certificate almost lovingly.

I mentioned above that the Klenert Red Cuvée is vegan. The five wines presented in the online wine tasting are vegan, but not all of their wines are vegan. Most of the Klenert wines are fermented in steel vats. The fermentation process is closely controlled, producing the exact taste required. This production method is vegan.

Other wines are fermented in wooden casks. The fermentation is spontaneous, which gives them a unique taste, supposedly. I can't comment on it, because I haven't sampled any of these wines. They're differentiated by the bottles having a black label. They also have a higher price, since David Klenert considers them to be his elite wines. The downside is that the casks have to be cleaned with gelatine, so the wine isn't suitable for strict vegans.

My thanks to David Klenert for an entertaining and informative session.

It must seem strange to my readers that I've written so much about this selection of Baden wines, since you know that I prefer Württemberg wines. I went into the tasting with an open mind, and I enjoyed what I tasted. I shan't drink the wines on a regular basis. Baden wines aren't usually available in Württemberg, and vice versa, so I have to order them online, which pushes up the prices. If I include postage, the Klenert wines cost more than twice as much as the Eberbach-Schäfer wines. The online wine tasting was a special treat for me. Will I repeat it? I don't know. Maybe.