Let’s Talk About Sekt! German Sparkling Wine! (Lots of Sekt jokes, AKA Secco)

Show Notes

Episode 74: Let’s Talk About Sekt! German Sparkling Wine! 00:00

Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela. And we are The Wine Pair! 

Ok, a quick orientation for those of you who may be new to the podcast - in each episode we learn about, taste and give our honest review of three wines that are reasonably priced - meaning under $20 each -  and should be easy for you to find. And, our podcast is made for people like us - people who love wine, but want to learn more about wine, find new wines to explore, and just feel more confident when we talk about and order wines. So, if that sounds like you, you are in the right place - and, we invite you to taste these wines or a Pinot Noir from your stash along with us while you listen as a fun way to participate in the podcast! And we are proud to say that we are officially recommended by the editors of Decanter Magazine from their October issue, who call us fun, irreverent, chatty, and entertaining. 

Ok, Carmela, in this episode, we are going to get down to it. And I mean right down to it. We are going to talk about Sekt! That’s right, some bubbly, wet, fizzy Sekt. Do you know what I am talking about?!? Sekt is the German word for sparkling wine, so when I say we are going to talk about Sekt, you are all going to have to get your heads out of the gutter. And get them into a wine glass, preferably a tall skinny champagne flute. 

Now, as we have said a million and a half times in our podcast, please, please, please do not call all sparkling wine Champagne. If you are still in the habit of doing that, it is time to stop. Because, again, a sparkling wine is only known as Champagne if it comes from the Champagne region of France and is made in a very specific way - called the traditional method or champagne method -  with some very specific grapes, namely Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I would say everyone listening to our podcast is aware of and probably enjoys, and definitely buys, sparkling wines made outside of the region of Champagne, France. In fact, I would say the vast majority of bubbly all of you out there are buying is not Champagne. And we are talking about wines like Prosecco from Italy, Cava from Spain, Crémant from France and Belgium and Luxembourg, and even good old sparkling wines from the US. But, there are wonderful sparkling wines made all over the world.

Believe it or not, Great Britain is making some good sparkling wines, as is Argentina, and we did an episode in February on sparkling wines from Argentina, episode 66. And, we did a number of episodes during the Holidays on different sparkling wines including Crémant. 

But did you know that Germany not only makes sparkling wines, but is the world’s 3rd largest producer of sparkling wine behind only Italy (which, I think somewhat surprisingly, makes the most) and France? It is ahead of Spain and the US, but I think most people in the US and other areas of the world are unaware of that. 

And, did you know that Germans are the largest consumers of sparkling wine per capita? I know, crazy, right? And, from what I have gathered, the Germans like their sparkling wines a little on the sweet side - they like them dry or semi-dry. So, again, remember as we have said that when a sparkling wine is called dry, it is actually on the medium sweet side, and semi-dry is getting pretty sweet, and when a sparkling wine is called brut it is actually on the drier side, and extra brut or brut nature or zero dosage is a dry as you get.

And I think we say this every time we talk about sparkling wine, but sparking wine shouldn’t just be saved for special occasions. We here at The Wine Pair Podcast think you should drink sparkling wine all the time. 

So, I think it’s time to learn more about German sparkling wines, what makes them special, how they are made, and to taste a few sparkling wines from Germany to see what we think and give them a little rating of our own . . .

But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug, right Carmela? First, we want to start by saying THANK YOU for listening to us and for supporting our show, and if you have not had the chance to do so yet, now would be an awesome time to subscribe to our podcast  - it is a free way to support us, and then you never have to miss a show!  - and a huge thank you to all of you who have subscribed already - we really really appreciate it! 

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You can also follow us and see fun pictures of the wines we are tasting and trying today on Instagram at thewinepairpodcast, and you can contact us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com with any questions or ideas you have.

And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should tell about The Wine Pair Podcast - and this week we want you to tell UPDATE

ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://www.winemag.com/2018/11/27/lets-talk-about-sekt/ 
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlsson/2020/05/08/the-world-is-thirsty-for-sparkling-wines-but-which-are-the-winners/?sh=358b370269c0 
• https://www.meiningers-international.com/wine/academic-papers/all-about-sparkling-wine-consumption-germany#:~:text=The%20German%20market%20for%20sparkling%20wines&text=Globally%2C%20Germany%20has%20the%20highest%20per%20capita%20consumption. 

Topic: Let’s talk about Sekt! And Secco! 09:21

So let’s learn a little bit more about sparkling wines from Germany. Again, Sparkling wines in Germany and Austria are called Sekt, and German sparkling wine has been around for more than 200 years. 

Not a lot of Sekt makes it outside of Germany, which is one of the reasons you have probably not heard of it - unless you have been to or are from Germany or Austria.  It doesn’t often show up on wine lists in restaurants despite the large amount that is made, although it is finding its way more and more into wine shops and restaurants, and I think is something to keep an eye out for. 

Sekt actually covers a wide range of grapes and styles - so like the name sparking wine in the US - Sekt can cover wines made in the traditional or Champagne method, and it covers wines made like Prosecco in the Charmat method. So, you cannot assume any kind of specific quality if you hear the word Sekt. In fact, Sekt can cover white, red, and rosé styles, too. 

And this might be one of the reasons why Sekt has not really taken off. According to most of the research I could find online, Sekt generally has a not so awesome reputation because it has been considered overly sweet and not great quality.

According to one article I read, that you can find in the show notes for this episode if you visit our website, one way to determine the quality of Sekt is by price, but because it is still an up and coming export wine, you should be able to find a good quality Sekt in the $15 - $30 range. 

All Sekt starts out as a still wine with low alcohol - and still in this case means that it is just a regular old non-sparkling wine. A lot of Sekt is then turned into bubbly using the same lower cost and less time-consuming way as Prosecco. And, in fact, one of the wines we are drinking today is called Secco - which is a nod to - you guessed it Prosecco. This lower cost way of making sparking, again called the Charmat, is a method where the second second fermentation of the wine occurs in large tanks. 

Some Sekt, however, is bottle-fermented for its second fermentation - like Champagne. And this is usually the higher quality wine, too. In fact, you can often find a “fermented in this bottle” stamp or wording on wines that use the traditional method. So, maybe look for that? 

The highest quality Sekt is usually grown in areas like Mosel in Germany (and we have one of those today) or Burgenland in Austria, and made from grapes that are native to Germany and Austria like Riesling and Gewurztraminer - and in fact, one of the wines we are trying today is a Sekt made from Riesling. 

Sparkling wine made from Riesling, sometimes known as Rieslingsekt, is pretty unique to Germany, and is said to make a pretty unique sparkling wine. An article we link to in our show notes from Wine Spectator describes sparkling German wines made from Riesling to be lively, fresh, tingling, aromatic, invigorating, and with descriptions of fruity and perfumed. 

Over the last 30-40 years, the Germans and Austrians have become more serious about the sparkling wine they are producing, and that includes being more strict about the quality of certain styles. For instance, Deutscher Sekt can only be made from German grapes, and the highest quality Sekt is called Winzersekt and it is bottle fermented and aged for at least nine months - which is actually still not that long for a bottle fermented sparkling wine. 

And, we already know that telling if a sparkling wine is dry or sweet is confusing enough in English or French, but in German, the word “herb” means brut, which is dry, and the word Trocken, which means dry, actually means that the wine is a little sweet, just like the word dry in any sparkling. Halbtrocken is even sweeter, and mild means that wine is dang sweet. Are you confused? Because I am!

So, this is going to be really fun because while we have had some German wines on our show, we do not drink a lot of German or Austrian wines in general, and although we drink a lot of sparkling wine, and we always say you should drink sparkling any time, not just on special occasions, but like on a Tuesday, I don’t think we have ever had a German sparkling wine, so this will be really fun. 

So, on that note, I think it’s time to learn a little more about the specific wines we are drinking today. Whaddya say?

ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://www.germanwines.de/knowledge/wine-more/sparkling-sekt/ 
• https://winefolly.com/deep-dive/new-sekt-wine-guide/ 
• https://worldsbestwines.eu/sparkling-wine/german-sparkling-wine/ 

German Sparkling Wines We Chose for This Episode 16:39

As usual, all of the wines we have chosen for this episode are under $20, and all of them should be relatively easy to find because I bought them all at wine.com. Again, in general it may not be super easy to find German wines at your usual grocery store, but you should be able to find them at larger stores like Total Wine or BevMo, and you should also be able to find them at any larger wine stores where you live. I actually went to a good local wine shop called Esquin here in Seattle, and they had several German sparkling wines - so they are out there!

Again, we got these on wine.com, and we are not sponsored by them by the way, or by any of the wines we are drinking, and even on wine.com the selection of Sekt was not amazing. So, we’ll tell you if they are worth seeking out!

The first German sparkling we are having today is called Henkell Finest Sparkling Wine Brut, and this is also the least expensive one we are having at a little over $10. 

While the winery describes the wine as “French cuvee craft meets German artisanal production” they are a little cagey about the grapes in their wine. In fact, they say the wine is made from a cuvee of four selected wines including Chardonnay. I think they mention Chardonnay because that is one of the key wine grapes in Champagne. 

But this wine is not made in the traditional or Champagne method - it is made in the Charmat method. Which, again, is not bad. Prosecco is made that way and people love Prosecco. It just means a less time consuming way of making wines.

They describe their wine as being an aperitif, which generally means that it is a before dinner wine. That, along with the fact that it is pretty low in alcohol, makes me think that, despite brut being in its name, it will probably be a little on the sweet side. 

The second wine we are drinking is called Fritz Muller Muller-Thurgau Secco, and they call themselves the German answer to Prosecco, and a German wine journalist said that this wine “tingles terrifically.” Wine Enthusiast did give this wine a 90 rating.

They describe this wine as semi-sparkling, and it is made from a grape I have never heard of before called the Müller-Thurgau grape, sometimes also known as Riesling-Silvaner, which was created by a dude called Hermann Müller in 1882. Seriously. It is evidently a cross cultivation of Riesling with Madeleine Royale which is a grape I have never fricking heard of before BUT it is Germany's second most planted variety, and has had a reputation of being bland and sweet. Which doesn’t sound awesome.

This wine is supposed to be fresh and fruity, and they even talk about making it into a “Fritz Spriz” by combining it with Aperol, so they are really going for the Prosecco vibe here. It does say Trocken on its label, which means dry, and which in sparkling means slightly sweet, again like a lot of Proseccos where are described as dry or extra dry.

So, I am excited to see how similar to a Prosecco this is.

The last wine we are going to try today is called Markus Molitor Mosel Riesling Sekt, and so this is a Riesling based sparkling, if you couldn’t tell, which, again, is kind of the specialty of German sparkling.

This winery has been producing sparkling wines only since the early 1980s, but this sort of coincides with the upsurge in better quality sparklings from Germany, and Mosel is, again, one of the top areas of wine production in Germany.

Like the other wines, this is made in the Charmat or tank method, and they describe their production this way: “The grapes are carefully selected, crushed, and then the must is fermented in large wooden barrels. A second fermentation follows in tank.” So, none of our wines today is made in the traditional method, which is interesting, even though two of them look like fancy sparkling wines. 

A website I ran into called Gus Clemens on Wine describes this wine as an excellent QPR wine, which is right up our alley. They also give some background on the winery. Evidently, Markus Molitor took over the family winery when he was only 20, and has expanded the number of acres they own to become the largest privately-owned winery and family-run vineyard. So there’s some trivia for you!

So, this will be fun. Three different German sparkling wines made from three different types or blends of grapes, and with varying levels of sweetness. I think it’s time to get to it, what do you think? We’ll take a quick break and be right back. And, if you have these wines or similar wines, drink along with us!


ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://www.henkell.com/en/sparkling-wine/#henkell-brut
• https://thegwc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Fritz-Mu%CC%88ller-Fact-Sheet-MT.pdf
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCller-Thurgau
• https://www.wine-searcher.com/grape-299-muller-thurgau 
• https://www.gusclemensonwine.com/markus-molitor-riesling-brut-sekt-nv/ 

German Wine Pairing Tasting and Reviews 24:15

Wine: Henkell Finest Sparkling Wine Brut (Click here to learn more about this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link.)
Region: Germany
Year: NV
Price: $12.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 11.5%
Grapes: Four grapes including Chardonnay
Professional Rating: 

What we tasted and smelled in this Brut Sparkling Sekt:

• On the nose: Sweet bread, brioche, a little yeast, apple, pear, pineapple, sweetness
• In the mouth: Sweet but not cloying, soda pop-like, tropical fruit, citrus, grapefruit, some bitterness, easy drinking, refreshing, crowd pleaser, good for game day, good party wine

Food to pair with this German Sparkling: Rich cheese, charcuterie board, creamy brie in puff pastry, french fries, tater tots, salty foods, game day foods, buffalo wings, not a fish wine
 
As a reminder on our rating scale, we rate on a scale of 1-10, where 7 and above means that we would buy it, and 4 and below means that we are likely to pour it down the sink, and a 5 or 6 means we are likely to drink it and finish it, but we are probably not going to buy it. 

Rating: 

• Joe: 7/10
• Carmela: 7/10

Wine: Fritz Muller Muller-Thurgau Secco (Click here to learn more about this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: Germany, Rheinhessen
Year: NV
Price: $19.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 11.5%
Grapes: Müller-Thurgau
Professional Rating: 

What we tasted and smelled in this Secco:

• On the nose: Mild, apple, a little bitterness, stone, peach, stone fruit, 
• In the mouth: Peach, apricot, bitterness, not very bubbly, honey, agave 

Food to pair with this Secco: Dessert wine? After dinner drink, fruit and cheese, doughnut, vanilla ice cream, strawberries and cream

Rating: 

• Joe: 6/10
• Carmela: 6/10

Wine: Markus Molitor Mosel Riesling Sekt (Click here to learn more about this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: Germany, Mosel
Year: NV
Price: $19.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 12.5%
Grapes: Riesling

What we tasted and smelled in this Sekt:

• On the nose: Subtle, apple cider, cinnamon, baking spice, vanilla, hot cross bun
• In the mouth: tons of apple, spicy, clove, allspice, feels like a wine for the Holidays, warm apple cider, decent bubbles, good finish, more complex and refined

Food to pair with this Sekt: A more versatile wine, pasta primavera, Asian food, Indian food, spicy food, schnitzel, Middle Eastern food, can be a dinner wine. 


Rating: 

• Joe: 8/10
• Carmela: 7/10

Which one of these are you finishing tonight?

• Carmela: Markus Molitor Mosel Riesling Sekt
• Joe: Markus Molitor Mosel Riesling Sekt

Taste profiles expected from German Sparkling   43:29

• General 
  • Will vary a ton by the type of grapes and style of winemaking, but German wines are often dry, crisp, and lots of acidity
• Henkell
  • Winemaker: Subtle aromas of citrus and tropical fruits. Crisp, full-bodied, well-balanced with excellent acidity
  • Henkell website: Delicate aroma of golden apple, Williams pears, citrus and a hint of brioche
• Fritz Muller Secco
  • WE: it's gorgeously floral, but with a chalky, earthen tang. Sprightly acidity and a fresh, green touch lends vibrance to a moderately long finish.
  • Winemaker: Pale straw yellow with green highlights. Fresh and fruity aromas of green apple and grapefruit. Mild and balanced taste with exotic notes and delicate Muscat tone.
• Markus Molitor Riesling
  • Winemaker notes: Aromas reminiscent of ripe pear, red apple, grapefruit, nectarine, and white peach. Notes of brioche, stone, and white pepper on the palate. Clear, lively, refreshing with a fine bubble and refreshing mineral finish.
  • Gus Clemens: Deep gold color; apricot, pear, nectarine, apple, almond on the nose; apricot, Meyer lemon, apple, pear, brioche, minerality on the palate.

Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 46:04

Ok, so, Carmela, it is just about time for us to go, but before we do, we want to thank you very much for listening to us - AND if you haven’t done so yet, now would be the perfect time to subscribe to our podcast AND also a fantastic time to leave us a nice rating and review on our website or Apple podcasts or other podcast service - and it is an awesome and free way to support us and help us grow listeners.

We would also love to hear from you about a wine you would like us to taste and review. You can, leave a message for us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com, or you can just email us at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com and tell us about a wine you are curious about, or curious what we think of it. And, follow us on Instagram so you can see pictures of all of these wines we are tasting and reviewing. 

And, next time you listen to an episode, drink along with us and see if you are tasting and experiencing the same things we are - it’s like a date night! And if you do that, we’d love to hear what you think!

Alright, with that, we are going to sign off, so thanks again, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine.