Tag Archives: Alsace

Free Tasting & Happy #HugelDay November 14th @BlackBirdWines

Posted on November 14, 2015 by

Celebrate all that fantastic France is by enjoying the nationwide celebration of Alsatian wine producer Hugel today, November 14th. Blackbird Wine Shop will pour five scintillating whites from 2-5pm for free in Northeast Portland. Be there!  

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Strasbourg 3: French Beer from Brasserie Uberach & Meteor

Posted on November 24, 2014 by

After visiting Strasbourg’s Christmas markets and its Hospice Wine Cellar, we switch gears. Germany waits across the border. In honor of Strasbourg’s bipolar Franco-Germanic nature, we shed Alsatian wine for beer, glorious beer. But first, the Cathedral’s Astronomical Clock must … Continue reading →

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Strasbourg Part 2: Historic Wine Cave beneath a Hospice: Cremant and Pinot Gris Grand Cru

Posted on November 17, 2014 by

Last Monday’s EU Austerity Drinking Tour landed us in Strasbourg’s Christmas markets, on top of its Cathedral, and enjoying its wine. Today, we descend into the caves of the Hospice de Strasbourg.

As with our visit, not ten days prior, to Burgundy’s Hospice de Beaune, we find Strasbourg had its own, even older medical, religious, wine cellar. Since 1395, cellars beneath the city’s hospital provided wine as medicine and sacrament. Like Beaune, this hospice gained vine-land from guilty proprietors bent on heaven. Although wine-making stalled during the last century, it reformed as a cooperative in 1995. Let’s see what survived the centuries. Continue reading →

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Christmas Markets, Wine, and Pastries in Strasbourg, Alsace, France: Wolfberger and Domaine Loew

Posted on November 10, 2014 by

We leave Luxembourg after three days. It was cold, charming, and filled with the leanest wine I have had. But this way we avoid bias or over-attachment . The fish starts to smell after three days, as grandma said. After 136 days of travel, we fight to keep things fresh.

So no respectable EU Austerity Drinking Tour would head to Germany without a brief stay in Strasbourg: heart of Alsace and its fantastic wine. Continue reading →

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Wine Geek Gift: Spätburgunder (aka Pinot Noir), August Kesseler, “Pinot N”, Pfalz, Germany 2010

Posted on December 12, 2013 by

Your wine geek wakes early, runs downstairs, and to their delight, finds something green and red-capped beneath the tree.

The slender bottle looks German. “Mmm…Riesling”, they think. Then, on closer inspection, their head explodes like a Christmas craker:

Yes. Pinot Noir. From Germany.

Now German wine usually evokes rough memories of cheap Riesling:

Yet Germany ranks third in the world for Pinot Noir acreage (30,000, just behind France and the US). The problem is, Germans drink most of it. Meanwhile, they pulled the Blue Nun’s veil of Riesling over our eyes. We could only assume that they made nothing but sweet yet tart whites.

No more! Treat you and yours this holiday with German Pinot. Continue reading →

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