Shelter Winery ‘Lovely Lilly’ Pinot Noir 2021
Location: Germany, Baden
Winemaker: Hans-Bert Espe & Silke Wolf
Grapes: Pinot Noir
From the Importer Vom Boden: Hans-Bert Espe and Silke Wolf have two of the coolest names in German winemaking.
We recognize this fact is completely irrelevant to their practices in the vineyard, in the cellar, and to the outstanding quality of the wines as a whole… probably to everything. Still, it felt wrong not to point out this simple fact.
This ridiculous introduction, however, does provide the perfect logic for our next question: what, then, isrelevant?
What’s most relevant is that the husband-and-wife team of Hans-Bert and Silke Wolf (pictured above) are making inspired, delicate and polished Pinot Noirs in a region dominated by heavy, cumbersome, oak-and-alcohol-laden Pinot Noirs that taste, well, often not so much like Pinot Noir.
What’s most relevant is the scale, the human scale,of this operation. In a region overrun by mega-sized, agriculture/industrial cooperatives, Hans-Bert and Silke farm their own few hectares of vines with great care, making only a little bit of wine, with great care.
The story here is really not that much different than the story at Enderle & Moll. At Shelter, as with Enderle & Moll, we have two people with a vision that puts thoughtfulness in the vineyard and clarity in the wine above yields in the vineyard and alcohol in the wine. The results are unlike all the others.
But ignoring the cooperatives for a moment, if you’ve heard anything about “quality” German Pinot Noir and Baden as a whole, you’ve likely heard someone say “Kaiserstuhl.” This region in Baden – a collection of volcanic hills toward the south – is where the “famous” German Pinots have come from, at least in the last few decades. It’s a hot place, and twenty years ago this factor was probably important for ripening. Not so much anymore, let’s just say that. Although the region is trying to redefine itself, for many the “Kaiserstuhl” has become synonymous with over-oaked, unbalanced and high-alcohol Pinot Noir – as if success for German red wine would be achieving the international plushness of Merlot grown in Portugal.
The vineyards of Hans-Bert and Silke (as well as Sven Enderle and Florian Moll) are north of the Kaiserstuhl. To be fair, they’re only about a half-hour north. But a lot changes in those thirty-or-so minutes. First, you have a much cooler microclimate, with the Black Forest cooling down the area. Second, the volcanic soils of the Kaiserstuhl give way to limestone and loess. You can likely see where this is going: Pinot Noirs with lower alcohols and higher acidities.
Location: Germany, Baden
Winemaker: Hans-Bert Espe & Silke Wolf
Grapes: Pinot Noir
From the Importer Vom Boden: Hans-Bert Espe and Silke Wolf have two of the coolest names in German winemaking.
We recognize this fact is completely irrelevant to their practices in the vineyard, in the cellar, and to the outstanding quality of the wines as a whole… probably to everything. Still, it felt wrong not to point out this simple fact.
This ridiculous introduction, however, does provide the perfect logic for our next question: what, then, isrelevant?
What’s most relevant is that the husband-and-wife team of Hans-Bert and Silke Wolf (pictured above) are making inspired, delicate and polished Pinot Noirs in a region dominated by heavy, cumbersome, oak-and-alcohol-laden Pinot Noirs that taste, well, often not so much like Pinot Noir.
What’s most relevant is the scale, the human scale,of this operation. In a region overrun by mega-sized, agriculture/industrial cooperatives, Hans-Bert and Silke farm their own few hectares of vines with great care, making only a little bit of wine, with great care.
The story here is really not that much different than the story at Enderle & Moll. At Shelter, as with Enderle & Moll, we have two people with a vision that puts thoughtfulness in the vineyard and clarity in the wine above yields in the vineyard and alcohol in the wine. The results are unlike all the others.
But ignoring the cooperatives for a moment, if you’ve heard anything about “quality” German Pinot Noir and Baden as a whole, you’ve likely heard someone say “Kaiserstuhl.” This region in Baden – a collection of volcanic hills toward the south – is where the “famous” German Pinots have come from, at least in the last few decades. It’s a hot place, and twenty years ago this factor was probably important for ripening. Not so much anymore, let’s just say that. Although the region is trying to redefine itself, for many the “Kaiserstuhl” has become synonymous with over-oaked, unbalanced and high-alcohol Pinot Noir – as if success for German red wine would be achieving the international plushness of Merlot grown in Portugal.
The vineyards of Hans-Bert and Silke (as well as Sven Enderle and Florian Moll) are north of the Kaiserstuhl. To be fair, they’re only about a half-hour north. But a lot changes in those thirty-or-so minutes. First, you have a much cooler microclimate, with the Black Forest cooling down the area. Second, the volcanic soils of the Kaiserstuhl give way to limestone and loess. You can likely see where this is going: Pinot Noirs with lower alcohols and higher acidities.
Location: Germany, Baden
Winemaker: Hans-Bert Espe & Silke Wolf
Grapes: Pinot Noir
From the Importer Vom Boden: Hans-Bert Espe and Silke Wolf have two of the coolest names in German winemaking.
We recognize this fact is completely irrelevant to their practices in the vineyard, in the cellar, and to the outstanding quality of the wines as a whole… probably to everything. Still, it felt wrong not to point out this simple fact.
This ridiculous introduction, however, does provide the perfect logic for our next question: what, then, isrelevant?
What’s most relevant is that the husband-and-wife team of Hans-Bert and Silke Wolf (pictured above) are making inspired, delicate and polished Pinot Noirs in a region dominated by heavy, cumbersome, oak-and-alcohol-laden Pinot Noirs that taste, well, often not so much like Pinot Noir.
What’s most relevant is the scale, the human scale,of this operation. In a region overrun by mega-sized, agriculture/industrial cooperatives, Hans-Bert and Silke farm their own few hectares of vines with great care, making only a little bit of wine, with great care.
The story here is really not that much different than the story at Enderle & Moll. At Shelter, as with Enderle & Moll, we have two people with a vision that puts thoughtfulness in the vineyard and clarity in the wine above yields in the vineyard and alcohol in the wine. The results are unlike all the others.
But ignoring the cooperatives for a moment, if you’ve heard anything about “quality” German Pinot Noir and Baden as a whole, you’ve likely heard someone say “Kaiserstuhl.” This region in Baden – a collection of volcanic hills toward the south – is where the “famous” German Pinots have come from, at least in the last few decades. It’s a hot place, and twenty years ago this factor was probably important for ripening. Not so much anymore, let’s just say that. Although the region is trying to redefine itself, for many the “Kaiserstuhl” has become synonymous with over-oaked, unbalanced and high-alcohol Pinot Noir – as if success for German red wine would be achieving the international plushness of Merlot grown in Portugal.
The vineyards of Hans-Bert and Silke (as well as Sven Enderle and Florian Moll) are north of the Kaiserstuhl. To be fair, they’re only about a half-hour north. But a lot changes in those thirty-or-so minutes. First, you have a much cooler microclimate, with the Black Forest cooling down the area. Second, the volcanic soils of the Kaiserstuhl give way to limestone and loess. You can likely see where this is going: Pinot Noirs with lower alcohols and higher acidities.