Totally NOT Toten Hosen

Last night the Berliner German Bar & Restaurant hosted German wine tasting for SD Wines. You know how I've been getting on about Rieslings recently (thank you Cru magazine!), well last night was all about 'em!  There were over 80 different wines to try; Rieslings and Gewurztramier among them.  We had an entire wing of the restaurant reserved for tasting, and that's just what everyone was there to do.  There were quite a few industry people, but there was also a good showing of Germans. 

Going down the line

SD Wines is comprised of a 5 person staff who sell German wines exclusively. SD was founded by a German woman who was sick of not having quality German wines available here in HK.  Now here it is almost three years later and they're growing, expanding, but most importantly educating the HK market about these lovely (mostly) sweet wines!  They don't have a retail outlet, but you can find their wines in various wine shops and hopefully more and more restaurants around town.

I started off in the front of the room with some of the sparkling wines.  They were all very fizzy and very easy drinking.  The Halbtrocken was interesting as it had a bit of sweet to it, and for it's value ($80) how could you go wrong!?

The high end sparklers

I then made my way over to the whites.   The whites were the focus of the evening and easily comprised over 75% of the wines present.  And ooooooh were they good.  I'm totally not a white person, especially at tasting events where there are so many wines to choose from.  But here, oh here, they totally outshone the reds.  One of the nicest ones I tried was the Riesling Kabinett feinherb 2008 (I took the tasting list, so yes, I am spelling this right!).  It was sweet yet maintained its acidity, a characteristic of which I have learned is crucial to drinking a sweet wine.   Another wine I really enjoyed was the Gewurztaminer Spatlese feinherb 2010.  It was sweet with flavors of honey and as my drinking companion coined it, cotton candy.  Again all of these wines were in the $80-$150 range. 

New friend Dirk (right) who procures German bread!

I did manage to drag myself away from the whites for just a moment to try some unusual reds.  The reds they had were all very light and accessible.  Two stood out to me; Portugieser trocken 2010 and the Regent trockenn 2010.  The former had light berry flavors and a hint of spice, while the latter was all about the pepper.  Love the pepper!!

Some lovely Pinots

To finish, I made my way to the Ice Wines and spirits table.  I had one teeny tiny sip of Brandy before deciding that was a terrible idea, and promptly moved to the Ice Wines.  All of thedessert wines were quite low in alcohol, which at this point of the night was much appreciated. [Note: There were spitoons present, but they were hard to get at!]  The most special of the dessert wines was the Terra Palatina Cab Sauv rose.  Sweet, but not cloyingly sweet.  The perfect balance of acid and sugar.  I need some more of this in my life!

I would bathe in this if I could

Alas, come 10 PM and the fun came to an end.  I must say the whole event was wonderful!  The wines were good, the staff knowledgable and friendly, and what a perfect venue!  I'm mad I ate before I went because they had some delicious snacks coming out, as well as a cheese plate to finish.   Don't get me started on cheese....

It's like the camera knows how I was seeing it :)