Buying German wine in Berlin

I would like to buy some wines from Germany for my family/friends back home. Does anyone have any good recommendations for wines that I can pick up from one of the large supermarket chains e.g. Kaiser's?

I am looking for a bottle each of white wine (maybe sparkling, a little sweet), red wine (preferably full bodied), a bottle of 'nouveau' wine (like strawberry wine, cherry wine, etc), and a bottle of ice wine.

The last time I bought ice wine was at Hamburg Airport. I haven't seen any here in Berlin. Would anyone know where I can get this?

Jade

You could try Jaques' Wein-Depot

www.weinhertz.de

wein handlung hertz on leonardstrasse in Charlottenburg has a vast range of german wines and eiswein. he isnt that friendly but knows German wines very, very well.

Jacques is pretty good Mainly French & Italian wines.

The Germans cannot make decent red wine for toffee. However they make some of the best white wines around.

I echo what HEM said. If you like dry whites, you cannot go wrong with Franconian wines. I love the Bacchus and the Schruebe (sp?), but the Rieslings and Silvaners are also good. If you like them a bit sweeter then try the mosel valley.

Reds, thats a diffrent ball game. I have had 2 good spatburgunder from the area around Bernkastell and then a few from the pfalz somewhere, but thats about it. I am into the spanish reds at the moment.

The Franconian wines are a bit of an acquired taste. I used to like them more than I do now. We very much like the dry Riesling from Dr. Deinhard (Deidesheim).

As for red: go to Jacques & try them out...

Fweinerei at the corner of Invalidenstrasse & Fehrbelliner Strasse (across from the main Weinerei) is a really nice little shop with a good selection and a really helpful owner. I've often asked for recommendations (for gifts and personal consumption) and never been disapointed.

Hi,

Thanks for all the replies and tips.

I decided to go to Jacque's Wein Depot on Bülowstraße today, reason being that was close to where I had an errand to run. He didn't have any ice wine. For what it is worth, I ended up buying a Rheingau Pinot Noir red for 9 euro, and a bottle of Chilean Syrah with raspberry aroma for 7 euro. The Rheingau was recommended by the guy in the shop, but the Syrah I bought because I liked the raspberry print on the label (I think guys call that 'bimbo buying').

I won't have a chance to taste the Syrah, because I will be giving that to a friend who has taken half the day off to show me round Amsterdam during my 6 hour stopover. But I will make sure my sis opens the Rheingau while I am with them.

For information sake, 9 euro is the cheapest bottle of wine (Jacob's Creek Merlot from Australia) you can find in Malaysia.

Jade

Since Jacque's Wein Depot is chiefly oriented to French & Italien wines (with notable exceptions) I would not expect them to have Eiswein which is essentially a German product and is not made every year. Why are you after Eiswein - its a very specialised product & good Eiswein costs a lot. Wine is a very personalised tase but IMHO I'd go for the dryer white wines from Germany; at the most a Halbtrocken...

I like sweet wines, generally. The first time I drank ice wine was about 8 years ago. It was Inniskillin from North America - hard not to like it when your first taste is almost one of the best. But as you said, it is not cheap. I think then, because it was relatively new, it cost about 80-100 euro a bottle - the dinner host was feeling very generous. But I think the prices have dropped since.

Anyway, its my first time in a dedicated wine shop here in Germany, and I thought he had a relatively large selection of German wines. But definitely, the French and Italian selections were bigger.

Jade

Eiswein is nothing special these days ... at least price-wise

The price for Eiswein is justified by the process. There are actually some noticeable contenders for merit coming from the Niagara peninsula. I think they harvest the grapes in the very early hours in the bitterly cold and each grape produces such a minute amount of juice, hence the smaller bottles and elevated price. Personally, I find it revolting and sickly sweet, then again, I used to neck Hungarian bulls blood and still don’t mind a bottle of Montelpulciano d'Abruzzo so I presume my palette is far from refined.
Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced Riesling to be given as a gift?

Many thanks

@ Miwild, thanks for the link. Why didn't I think of KadeWe? Honestly, I did think I could have picked up a bottle at somewhere like Kaiser's.

Anyway, since I've been here, I've only had Choya Plum Wine (another of my favorite) from Japan. I bought it at Ulrich when I came across it while doing my grocery shopping. It is a sweet dessert wine (I like sweet wines - I don't know why) that is lighter in alcohol content than ice wine. Drink it ice cold on the rocks - great on a hot summer day.

Jade

Personally, I wouldn't buy wine in a supermarket in Berlin: there are so many good small-to-medium sized wine shops. The one I go to is in Prenzlauer Berg (http://www.weinberg-berlin.de/). The owner and staff really know their stuff and I've had some great recommendations. They have a pretty good selection of German wines (mostly modern and dry, though) and the prices, I think, are very reasonable. (I think that a lot of their wine is sourced from smaller growers who wouldn't ship in big enough quantities to make it worth a supermarket's while).

Not quite true HEM. Our neighbours have a vintner who delivers from time to time. We ordered a merlot from him and it was very very good. Apparently his Schwarzriesling was also excellent but it had sold out. Also had had info from friends about another vinter and good reds. Would need to look up the names. I must say that the Austrians also make some really drinkable white wines. Aren't we lucky to be living here???