German Wine Society Dinner with Rainer Lingenfelder: The Speech

(Photo: Rainer Lingenfelder autographs a bottle of Lingenfelder Fox-Label Dornfelder for Margaret Anne.)

On March 5 the German Wine Society held a very special dinner at the Seven Oaks in Regina--not special because of the venue, so much (though the food was very good!) but because we were honored by the presence of Rainer Karl Lingenfelder of Germany’s Lingenfelder Estate Winery, scion of a family that has been making wine in the Pfalz region of the Rhine Valley for 13 generations.

We've created two posts, this one providing a recounting of Lingenfelder’s formal speech, and the other providing our comments on the evening’s food and wine, with some additional comments by Lingenfelder.

The Lingenfelder vineyards are of medium size for the Pfalz region, Lingenfelder said, but that means that they're only about 15 ha.

"Our production is accordingly tiny," Lingenfelder said, adding, in an echo of something often heard in Saskatchewan, "It's difficult to make money in agriculture." He gave the well-known advice about how to make a small fortune in the wine trade: first, invest a large fortune.

Lingenfelder is already exporting to Ontario, B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and the Maritimes--and on this trip he had spoken to a buyer at the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority. "Hopefully you will see our wines soon," he said.

Lingenfelder showed a slide of the family home, a 19th century house in which he was born and still lives. ("Pretty to look at, but not so comfortable to live in," as he put it.)

To understand the Lingenfelder wines, Lingenfelder said, it is first helpful to know where the Lingenfelder estate is. "Location, terroir, origin is very important," he said. "We are not making a produce without heritage, we are making a product that has a place in the world."

The Pfalz is a grape growing region in the Rhine Valley in the southwest corner of Germany, bordering France--specifically Alsace. Along the Rhine and the side rivers is wine country.

That's a bit remarkable when you consider that the 50th parallel runs through the region--making it essentially as far north as Regina, and you can't grow (or at least ripen) grapes in Regina. The difference is that the Gulf Stream brings warm water, and hence warm weather, to the coast of Europe. Even so, the region is definitely "borderline viticulture area," Lingenfelder said. Fortunately, the Pfalz is a warm area protected by mountains and hills, giving it "an almost Mediterranean feel."

The geological and climatic conditions of Pfalz combine the advantages of cool climate viticulture with fully ripe fruit (unlike, say, the Champagne region of France, where they can't fully ripen fruit but have come up with an excellent way of making use of unripe grapes!)..

The Lingenfelder family has been growing grapes for 13 generations, since 1520, always in the same area, though not exactly in the same village.

He showed a picture of himself, his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather when he was a small boy, then showed a photo of his own three sons: the 14th generation.

"What do we do?" Lingenfelder asked rhetorically. "It is really quite simple: we grow grapes." They're not so much winemakers, he said. Instead, "wine almost happens by itself."

They have a modern cellar, where they use stainless steel tanks to preserve the natural fruit character of white wine. "Stainless steel does not interfere with the wine," Lingenfelder said. Oak, on the other hand, "gives off flavour and lets the wine breath." That's wanted for some styles, but not all.

The wine-making process is very natural. "We do control the temperature," Lingenfelder said, but "we do not stabilize or fine our estate bottled wines...we do not add yeast, we do not add bacteria."

This "completely hands off" approach makes the wine "a natural expression of the part of the soil where the grapes are growing," he said.

He also said that although it usually works well, there are sometimes "small disasters where the yeast don't do a proper job." Those wines are still "OK," he said, but are sold off in bulk. "You sometimes have to pay a price if you want to make very individual and very special wines."

For their red wines, they use barrels that are more than 100 years old, Lingenfelder said. The Dornfelder tasted during the dinner came from those barrels.

"We're trying to combine the modern approach and the traditional approach," he said. "Both have their place. Both are good for specific reasons . . . We try to use modern technology to bring out the best of what we've got without too much interference."

Among the newest Lingenfelder wines are the various animal-label varietals. Lingenfelder showed off the Bird-Label Riesling. "It is a serious wine, yet it comes in an uncomplicated, consumer-friendly package."

The traditional German label contains a lot of information, Lingenfelder said, but in this fast-paced age not so many people can take the time to try to understand the small print. "Even some people who are trained in wine find it difficult to pronounce some German wines," he said. "We finally, and somewhat reluctantly, decided we should make it easier for everyone."

They hired a designer from California (Chuck House) to come up with a label based on how the Lingenfelders see themselves: as farmers with a long tradition on the land, who are having fun with what they're doing.

"We didn't give him any visual clues...more importantly, we gave him Riesling to drink--lots of Riesling." In fact, he said, since it took more than two years for the design process, "We marinated this guy in Riesling."

The result, he said, was a "very nice label" which speaks to the Lingenfelder terroir, soil, and vineyard, with a hint of light-heartedness.

The bird label was so successful the winery was asked to put other grape varieties under the same label. "People asked for ‘Bird Label,’ not ‘Lingenfelder reisling,’" he said.

However, every grape is a "different animal," so instead of using birds on every label, he said, there's Hare Label Gewurtrzminer, Fox Label Dornfelder, Bee Label Morio Muskat, Owl Label Pinot Grigio . . . "It's a whole zoo!"

Lingenfelder wrapped up his brief talk with his motto for this new age of wine: "The 21st century," he proclaimed, "is the age of Post-Chardonnism."