Wine and Food

Weissburgunder, Johannes Peters, 2016, White-wine from Germany

6.5 points

Recently, I opened a 2016 Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder) by Johannes Peters and was extremely pleased and surprised. What a good wine! At the beginning of my writing on this blog, I described in more detail about the wine regions on the lower Saar and also about the winemaker Johannes Peters Peters, Scharzhofberger, Riesling, Spätlese, 2007, who stands in the shadow of some more “famous” and larger wineries, but has a parcel on the world famous Scharzhofberg, where he harvests a noble Riesling every year. 2016, so not so young for a so-called “quality wine” and still it comes with a refined freshness. Age does well to the wine, you might think that the wine has only just reached its peak. In addition to the surprising freshness, which is not to be confused with sour, the wine is delicate and overall pleasantly soft. A wonderful Burgundian from the Saar, for this quality, fabulously inexpensive and very much recommended, if you do not want a Riesling to your asparagus. It also goes well with roast pork or just on the side.

If I write a second time about a winemaker or the same wine but different vintage, you could interpret that as a certain laziness. Of course, I can relate well to the fact that I have already written everything about the winemaker or the area where the wine comes from. But sometimes I do not write so much about these points, but rather tell a story that I experienced with each wine.

I have been drinking wines from Johannes Peters for many years. They are really unknown and almost never appear in one of the top restaurants I go to. The sommeliers in my hometown Berlin do not know the wines of Peters. Why that is, I’ve asked myself a few times, because only the “lower” quality cannot be the reason. Johannes Peters has a solid homepage and as a customer you get a pleasant infrequent newsletter that is actually always interesting, because you can read more about wine making than that he raves about his wines. He does not advertise, is not active on Instagram and does not care about organic (may he should!). Nevertheless, or even more so: this is wine “Made in Germany” – at a high level, great quality and finally affordable. You do not need Günter Jauch as an investor to grow a very good, but down-to-earth wine on the Saar, but love for your home country –or better Heimat –  and the willingness to always be there for the wine. As countless winegrowers in Germany do whose wines are better known in their region than in international starred restaurants. Are they therefore less good: certainly not!

So, this Pinot Blanc is not the best Pinot Blanc of my life. And it’s not exceptional either, it’s not organic and the wine barrels are not played with music at full moon, but it has been such a pleasant and beautiful experience for me when, after two years or so, I opened a bottle of 2016’s again I wanted to write about it immediately! Cheers.

Btw: you can order wine online at https://peterswein.de/