Discovering Deidesheim: Part 1. Aka, The Underground Nobility

This and the next winery I will mention came highly regarded by local informants as well as the kind and extremely knowledgeable Jean and David of Mosel Fine Wines . These wines can be fairly hard to track down. As I found out, this is mainly due to longstanding customer relationships and handshake agreements that are often centuries old.

We were greeted on arrival with Pierre, one of the best Sekts I have had. Maybe the best. Our guide mentioned that it was just, only, 3 years on the lees. Less than Krug of course. This immediately showed where the winery team felt they were in the fine wine stratosphere. As I would come to find out, the winery was held in this regard by the wine world for a long time.

We headed down into the underground cellar that seemed more vast than the above building. In fact this is very much the case. Around 200 years ago the owner started buying up other properties as his production expanded. Buying up homes that had cellars, but in many cases buying just the cellars. These cellars were then connected in a labyrinth network under the city. To this day there are houses in the city who have a locked, disused door that connects to the winery.

While walking through the underground cellars in what may have been across the street and around the block, we encountered a magnificent old barrel in the style that Germans of yore did so eloquently. This was a barrel used and commemorated for wine that was destined to the Czars of Russia. Bassermann Jordan was a consistent provider of wines to the Russian Court.

It was noted that maybe the estate has not been able to market its own history as well as other wineries. Cristal anyone?

A few years ago the production was finally moved to a new facility. What is very much a romantic lair was only able to be maintained through the use of a network of pumps to move wine around, and water out. Gravity in the end is more natural.

Library wines

In this network of underground passages are two main library cellars containing every vintage of Riesling dating back to the early 1800’s. In addition to this, the former proprietors in the past century started and maintained an alternate library of wines to compare the wines of the world. They have these super old vintages of Château d’Yquem and 1st Growth Bordeaux. What is even more striking is the same library contains world wines coming from Chile, Australia and even Israel going back to the beginning of the last century.

This is definitely due, in part, to the worldly outlook of the original ownership. Owners whose backgrounds were in politics and who proved one could make money in wine. They had the knowledge, travels, and pockets to create such a library and estate. In addition to this, a large amount of literature on a variety of subjects was published. I was told of how one for these books that spanned many subjects, illustrated the global outlook of the time, but noted the upper class education mentality of writing footnotes in Latin with no German translation.

Roman Ruins

Needless to say, the winery and the region’s viticultural heritage stretch back. The Pfalz was still on the side of the Roman imperium. The actual name or in English, Palatinate (this being the only example where the English name is harder to say than the German) supposedly comes from Roman times. The home of the Roman Emperor was on the Palatine Hill, but when later emperors would move their base, the name followed them. Milan and Ravenna didn’t keep this name, but it stuck with the whole countryside of Pfalz.

Viticulture has been in the region for a long time. They have actually found a few Roman Anfora in their vineyards, and yes, they now do produce two cuvees of Anfora wine. What is more startling is that the oldest glass bottle still containing wine was found while doing excavation for a new railroad through the vineyards. This can be seen at the museum in Speyer.

Road to Quality

As Sydney Frank, the creator of Grey Goose said, “ It’s easier to marry a million than to make a million .” The origin of Bassermann-Jordan goes back to an individual who married a wealthy widow with great vineyards. The next generation also consolidated several vineyard plots through marriage, uniting some of the best vineyards into one cellar. Fast forward to the owner being active abroad, and throughout Germany and witnessing first hand the marvels of what Rheingau could produce. Estate bottling and vineyard differentiation may be the key, and for Bassermann-Jordan it certainly was. Soon the winery was selling a liter of wine for five times the price of it’s neighbors. Soon the ownership bought the neighbors’ better vineyards.

Down the road, new generations had new issues and the estate was broken into what is today:

• Weingut Geheimer Rat Dr. von Bassermann-Jordan
• Weingut von Winning
• Weingut Reichsrat von Buhl

They are all VDP Members with high reputations. They have recently become unified by a local self-made millionaire. Some have rolled their eyes at a recent mogul buying up the most aristocratic estates in the city. Others mentioned that as he became infatuated with wine he had a dream of uniting them back into their former glory. Regardless of the intention, if anyone was given the opportunity and ability to become owner of such a treasure, whom would not? Unfortunately the new owner of these prestigious estates died shortly after attaining them.

Note that there has been no noticeable unification of the estates. Each continuing their style. Furthermore new investments in infrastructure have been injected into the wineries, separately, and seemingly with full delegation.

Asterisks

It must be noted that the estate has also followed in the trend of many Pfalz wineries in the past 15 years of planting Pinot varieties which seems to always include Sauvignon Blanc. Most are very good if not exceptional. At Bassermann they are perfect. They have a top tier of barrique versions, the SB in particular could easily be an example of how it should be done. Another peculiarity was the Goldmuskateller Auslese. The winemaker had fallen in love with the Northern Italian Moscato Giallo, and brought the vine to the estate. It is a magnificently beautiful expression of a vine I already adore.

The Pièce De Résistance must be this unlabeled half bottle that was brought out. We tasted it blind. The bottle looked old, the wine had a darker look. It was not brown, if anything lighter than some recently released Vin Santo. A world of complex flavors and dry. Still holding acidity with a realistic semblance of refreshing life to it.

It was a 1958 Trockenbeerenauslese.

Originally published at http://aperitivoedition.wordpress.com on December 11, 2017.