Tim Jackson MW (left) and Richard Hemming MW did the heavy lifting at Riesling Night 2. Michael's and Jancis's tasting notes to follow. See more about our first Riesling Night here, and tasting notes from this second one here.
On an almost impossibly wet and windy night in London last Sunday, our regular haunt Caravan King's Cross played host to our second Riesling Night, this time celebrating the Kabinett style.
A collection of 22 pairs of wines, one from 2017 and an antecedent from an older vintage, were collected with the help of the VDP under the guidance of Herr Riesling, Michael Schmidt. The wines were unpacked, chilled and subsequently tasted by the team. Seen left to right below are Michael, vice-president of the VDP Armin Diel, the red-jacketed back of Hilke Nagel, also of the VDP, then Tim Jackson MW, Jancis and Richard. (Tam was busy elsewhere and Julia was recovering from her first trip to Japan.)
As usual, a sold-out audience of keen-bean tasters were raring to go by the stroke of six-thirty.
The event brought people from as far as Shanghai, Washington DC and Beirut to take advantage of such a great collection of Rieslings, including the following great names.
The tasting was interrupted briefly by an introduction from Jancis, with Lily and Celine from glass purveyors richardbrendon.com in the background.
After which came storytime with Michael Schmidt, who talked about the wines in more detail.
With Armin Diel of Schlossgut Diel in the Nahe finishing the speeches with some droll thoughts on the health benefits of Riesling Kabinett.
Meanwhile, things were heating up in the kitchen, as the Caravan team prepared another feast of canapés and pizzas to soak up the Riesling.
They were devoured as quickly as they were served, and by nine o'clock the room had been sufficiently emptied of wine and food, fuelling 100 very satisfied attendees. Our thanks to the whole team at Caravan, Armin and Hilke and their colleagues at the VDP, and Michael Schmidt for selecting an outstanding range of wines to taste. A nice four-figure sum, our surplus from the event, will be donated to the VDP's favoured children's charity.