Results of German Wine Institute Pinot Noir tasting announced

Published: 09 November, 2011

German Pinot Noir came up trumps at a recent International Pinot Noir tasting, with seven of the judges' top 10 wines coming from Germany.

The event was the brainchild of Tim Atkin and Hamish Anderson who visited Germany and were impressed by the quality of the Pinot Noirs.

They challenged the German Wine Institute to hold a comparative tasting, pitting German Pinot Noir against some of the world's most revered Pinot Noir producers from Burgundy, New Zealand and Oregon, among others.

Atkin and Anderson tasted over 300 German Pinot Noirs in order to select the top 20 for the competition.

The Pinot Noirs from non-German producers were also selected by Atkin, following a recent visit to the International Pinot Noir Celebration in Oregon.

The blind tasting, which was judged by a panel of wine experts including Jancis Robinson MW, Xavier Rousset MS and Peter McCombie MW, was organised by the German Wine Institute and chaired by Tim Atkin MW.

The top-placed German wine was the 2008 Winzerhof Thörle Hölle Spätburgunder from the Pfalz, which came in third position behind Oregon's 2009 Anticaterra Pinot Noir and the Californian 2008 Au Bon Climat Isabelle.

The other top-placed German wines included the 2009 Rudolf Fürst Centgrafenberg Spätburgunder, 2007 Ziereisen Jaspis Alte Reben Spätburgunder, 2008 Gutzler Westhofener Morstein Spätburgunder, 2008 Ziereisen Schulen Spätburgunder, 2009 Jean Stodden Alte Reben Spätburgunder and 2009 Heitlinger GmbH Königsbecher Spätburgunder.

As Steffen Schindler, marketing director for the German Wine Institute, said: "The UK is one of our major markets abroad for German wine, so it's great to raise the profile of our Pinot Noirs here.

"In this tasting, German Pinot Noirs outscored New Zealand, Australia, Burgundy, Oregon, Austria and California combined so we hope this will go some way to demonstrating that German Pinot Noirs really can compete with the best in the world for quality."

The objective was to draw attention to the fact that Germany is the third largest producer of Pinot Noir in the world and to highlight the top quality of German Pinot Noir.

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