IN OUR BAR: A List of the Top 10 Cool Things from Our Wine Experts
– Asst. Wine Director Kerry Ichimasa
“Weingut Dr. Loosen” Dinner on October 17, 2017 at Alan Wong’s Honolulu
One - Ernst Loosen has been internationally recognized with numerous awards, including Winemaker of the Year by Gualt Millau in 2001, White Winemaker of the Year in 2005 by Wine International and Man of the Year in 2005 by Decanter Magazine.
Two - The six major vineyards of Dr. Loosen are classified as Erste Lage (equivalent to grand cru).
Three - Some of the vineyards are so steep that the harvesters need to repel down the slopes on anchored lines to hand pick the grapes.
Four - It can take an entire day to harvest one acre of the vineyard.
Five - The average age of the vines are around 70 years old with some being over 120 years old.
Six - At one point at the turn of the century, Riesling was the most expensive wine in the world.
Seven - Riesling is one of the most versatile wines in the world that can match a variety of foods and flavors.
“It is beautiful that you have so many options with Riesling. There's no other great variety in the world, which has this kind of versatility that you can choose a wine, a bone dry, medium dry, sweet, low alcohol, high alcohol. I mean, you have all these options. Riesling responds to the particular terroir of the region, you know. You can have a more earthy style. You can have a fruity style. That is like Pinot noir. It is a beautiful variety, but it seems that if you want to drink Riesling, you need a little bit of knowledge. You need a background.” – Ernst Loosen
Eight - Ernst Loosen once kept a wine in barrel for 28 years just to see what would happen.
“I thought how can you keep wines for 20 to 30 years in barrel? They must be awful. They must be horrible, these wines, you know. After going to my dad, because that's something I told you, my dad wasn't very much interested in wine, I said, ‘can I have a barrel of wine?’ He said ‘take what you like.’ It was 1981 Wehlener Sonnenuhr, and I said look, this 81 we keep now. I kept it 28 years in barrel, nearly 28 years. I bottled it the end of 2008. It was an '81, and so we put it away and it was a little bit kind of like a…how do you say a cider? And then I tasted it again now after 5, 6, 7 years again, and the wine becomes younger and younger and younger.
What is this movie, the story of Benjamin ...Benjamin Button. He ages backwards.
All of this wine ... I call it my Benjamin Button wine, you know. Every year the wine tastes fresher and fresher. I thought this is ridiculous. What is going on here?”
Nine - If Ernst Loosen had a super power it would be to turn water into wine.
Ten - Ernst Loosen put “Reserve” on the label of some of his Grosses Gewachs wines. He did this to separate these wines from his normal Grosses Gewächs, to highlight their extended barrel aging.
We are honored to have world-renowned winemaker Ernst Loosen as our guest on Tuesday, October 17, 2017. Reservations for this special dinner are limited. Please call 808-949-2526 for reservations.