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I ’m thinking about them because my wife and I just returned recently from five days in Berlin, and what struck me most of all about the wines there was how much I enjoyed the spätburgunders. These spätburgunders were about as different as you can imagine from the California paradigm of fat, syrupy, fruit-dripping pinot noirs. Instead they were splendidly light and agile wines that were delicious with food.

At Lutter and Wegner, a traditional Berlin restaurant on Charlottenstrasse right in the center of the city, the excellent wine list included quite a few spätburgunders. I selected a 2005 Von Unserm trocken from a Rheingau producer I had never heard of, Balthasar Ress.

The wine was a pure, pale ruby, so light that the waitress apologized to me as she poured the wine for me to taste. “Please don’t apologize, ’ I told her. “I ’m relieved! ’ Pinot noir is not supposed to be particularly dark, and I tend to be suspicious if it is.

The wine was light-bodied and delicate, cherry-scented and slightly bitter. It was young and not complex but absolutely delicious, the perfect weight and flavor for my smoky potato soup and the almost comically huge schnitzel, which even with its ridges and folds dwarfed the plate it came on.

Another night, at the restaurant Florian, I had an even better bottle, a 2006 trocken Bürgstädter Centgrafenberg from the Franken producer Rudolf Fürst.

This wine, too, was unusually light-colored and lively with an aroma of fresh berries, and with my roasted duck it was light and lithe, an excellent match.

German pinot noirs are not so easy to find in the United States but they are worth seeking out if only to sample a very different – and to me, at least, more recognizable — expression of pinot noir than the prevailing heavy style most popular in California. If you’re looking for knock-you-over-the-head cornucopias of fruit and oak, these wines are not for you, but if you want graceful wines with lightness and finesse than the word is spätburgunder.

New York Times, -"The Pour"

New York Times, -"The Pour