About the wine

Anyone can make Riesling on the Moselle, for which the region is known. But Daniel Twardowski had something else in mind. As a wine merchant, he had developed a passion for French Pinot Noir that did not exist in his home country. Why, he wondered, shouldn't the noble Pinot grapes also thrive on the banks of the Moselle? After a long period of tinkering with specialists, the right clones were found. The result was a red wine that tastes as he had dreamed it would. The raven and nut on the label remind us of the unconventional approach and the special feature of this daring project. Because somehow the birds were also inspiring, who grabbed nuts from an old tree on the edge of the vineyard to let them crash from high up onto the slate soil between the vines, until at the end — cracking — the interior was exposed. Pinot Noix is not a spelling mistake by the way — noix means nut in French. With a lot of dedication, positive madness and a good dose of luck, Twardowski also achieved what he had in mind — and learned one thing above all else: Nobody rises too high when they fly with their own wings. The winery is located in western Germany — on a side arm of the Moselle, near the village of Dhron. Since 2006, only Pinot clones have been growing on three hectares in steep slopes and Gran Cru sites, which are aged into one wine per vintage. The soil is reddish and interspersed with iron oxides, which give the wine its typical minerality and a certain salt tone. Unlike in Burgundy to the south, however, the climate is a bit cooler. This results in a solid acidity as the basis for the fruit and lightness of the wine, which is darker and more stable in color than conventional Burgundy. The best is just good enough for the queen of red wines: Selective hand picking, organic tillage without chemicals, and the preparation and bottling takes place in the old French way, in a basket press without mechanical pumping. As in the past, in the pre-machine age, when there were even more walnut trees in the vineyards on the Moselle, in whose shadows the workers could rest. In a top-class blind tasting, the newcomer from the Moselle beat many other wines, including the 2008 Pinot Noir from Gantenbein and even the 2001 La Tâche from Romanée-Conti.