Wine: Klenert Rosé

This is the fourth wine in the online wine tasting with David Klenert. It's a Rosé wine, the preferred wine for the many inexperienced wine drinkers who can't decide between white and red. It's wrong to think of it as a halfway drink between the two. Rosé is made from the same grapes that are used for making red wine.

Rosé wines are usually cuvées, even though they're not declared as such. It's a tradition in Germany that Rosé wines are simply called Rosé, nothing else. In this case, the Klenert Rosé is a mix of Spätburgunder and Lemberger. It's a reasonable tasting wine, fruity but with a playful acidity. It's not something I would drink under normal circumstances.

Many vineyards make wines that they call Weißherbst (engl. late autumn). They have a similar colour to Rosé, a light red, so they're often called Rosé. This is nothing short of ignorance. However similar the colour may be, they're different types of wines. One major difference is that a Weißherbst is never a cuvée. The grape variety is always in the name, such as the Eberbach-Schäfer Spätburgunder Weißherbst. Klenert doesn't make any Weißherbst wines.

Rosé wines are made worldwide. Weißherbst wines are exclusive to Germany and Austria. They're more common in Württemberg than in the other wine growing areas. I assume is that this is because the vineyards want to offer a sweeter tasting alternative to the typical Württemberg dry wines. I don't usually drink sweet wines, but I appreciate a good Weißherbst, because it's a natural sweetness.

David Klenert spent some time answering a viewer question on a subject that I've long been curious about: why do his bottles use screw caps instead of corks? It's not just the Klenert wines. It's something I've noticed with Württemberg wines. When I lived in Germany in the 1990's almost all wine bottles were corked. When I returned 20 years later, almost none had corks. It's evidently a myth that wine keeps better if the bottle is corked. Vineyards liked to use corks as a sign of quality, but nowadays they've given up.  The problem with corks is that the cork has a taste of its own which is added to the wine, the longer the wine is kept. Model metal caps are neutral and don't affect a wine's taste.

This is David Klenert with his family. It must be wonderful for a child to grow up surrounded by wine. It's the post-deluge drink. As the Bible tells us, Noah was the first person to make wine. He was also the first man to get drunk, and he collapsed naked. We can have sympathy with him. It was something new, and he didn't know how much to drink. I've never collapsed naked after drinking wine. Not yet.