We're off to Berlin for a few nights before Christmas. It's a city that is always fascinating and, alongside the traditional markets at this time of year there is always plenty to do and see. Although it was only a couple of months before the first Covid lockdown that we were last there the Humbolt Forum as well as the new airport, now finally open, will be new experiences. But I have to admit that finding somewhere special to eat in Germany causes some anxiety compared with say France or Italy and then I still tend to find myself undecided whether I want to accompany the food with beer or wine. A meal of traditional hearty German fare seems to demand a large stein of beer but in a finer dining establishment having a look at the wine list seems more appropriate. And here I have to admit I am rarely on familiar ground. For example, here is the start of the wine list at a mid-price restaurant we like in Berlin - Acht&Dreissig:
Most people will be familiar with Riesling. It's a well-known grape variety planted extensively in Germany and accounts for about a quarter of all the country's wine production. However, the third and fourth wine listed, Grauburgunder and Weissburgunder, are less recognisable. Would you be bold enough to order one of them, or are you going to play safe and order the Riesling? The restaurant's red wines are on the next page of the wine list. These include familiar reds from Italy (Barbara d'Asti and Primitivo) and a Cabernet Sauvignon from France. But what is this Spätburgunder at the top?
Even if you are unfamiliar with the German language you can see that all three of these wines end with "…burgunder", and a bit more knowledge of the language would tell you that two of the prefixes - 'grau' and 'weiss' are colours (grey and white respectively). The other prefix ('spät') translates as 'late'. The 'Burgunder' bit translates as a 'Burgundian' / 'coming from Burgundy' therefore we have three wines - a grey Burgundian wine, a white Burgundian wine and, slightly more ambiguous, a 'late' Burgundian wine. However, these are German wines not wines from Burgundy, an area of France. The missing snippet of information you need to know is that the grapes from which all of these wines are derived are mutations of the pinot grape which is thought to have originated in Burgundy.
Ever heard of a wine made from grey pinot? Of course, it's what the Italians label as Pinot Grigio…. oh, and what the French label as Pinot Gris. And now it's not hard to apply similar logic to decipher that white pinot is a wine that elsewhere is labelled as Pinot Blanc. But still, where does that put the red wine 'late' pinot? Remember the reference to Burgundy. What is the main red grape in wines from Burgundy? Answer: Pinot Noir. The 'late' prefix here in German refers to the relative late-ripening of this particular grape.
So we can now offer the following summary:
Grauburgunder = Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris
Weissburgunder = Pinot Blanc
Spätburgunder = Pinot Noir
But now you've got the hang of these compound nouns I should warn you there's yet more of them on wine lists in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. For example, Blauburgunder (translates as 'blue' Burgundian wine, presumably because of the colour of the fruit) and Frühburgunder (translates as 'early' Burgundian wine due to being an earlier ripening variety) are also both used for what we would otherwise call Pinot Noir. What a minefield!
Comments
Post a Comment