1811er

1811er

This Year was exceptional in many European wine regions and is even referred to in some sources as the best of the past three centuries earlier. Among other things, Château Lafite-Rothschild (Lafite time), Château d'Yquem , a Riesling from Weingut Bassermann-Jordan and Tokay called. Wines from this vintage are known as "Napoleon wine" because the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was (1769-1821) then reached the height of his fame. This year, his son Napoleon II was born. A Château d'Yquem from this vintage was sold in 2011 for € 85,000 and ranks among the most expensive wines in the world . The wines from this vintage were also called Century wine dubbed (millennium wines). In the vernacular, the name was Comet wine coined because this year by Honoré Flaugergues (1755-1830) discovered comet appeared, which was one of the three largest ever been sighted, and his tail length was more than 100 million kilometers. The comet was then awarded to the prominent influence wine quality.

In Germany, the musts had to records obtained must weight 80 to 85 ° Oechsle (16 to 17 ° KMW) and "have their weight in gold." Here the Year was designated as "Eleven" (or "Eilfer"). Thus he also mentioned Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) in his West-Eastern Divan with the verse: "To what wines, has Alexander drunk, I bet the last spark of life: He was not as good as mine." A letter from him to the estate is Bassermann-Jordan Deidesheim-Pfalz get back to 1820, in which he ordered the wine for a cure. These were a plant from a position monster (Forestry). It was probably not a varietal Riesling, but a time in the vineyards still widespread Mixed Set from the Riesling, Traminer and Orléans (grape) . The cause of the extreme longevity is the tannin awarded the thick-skinned Orléansrebe.

Other reasons the then usual fermentation with skins and stalks, a strong will Sulfur , a long barrel in , and the ungrafted called. Wines from the pre-phylloxera (ie before the phylloxera) to have been significantly extract-rich. Two incidents testify to the longevity of the wine. In a letter from 1883, the Prussian Chancellor Otto thanked Prince of Bismarck (1815-1898) on the occasion of the winery Bassermann-Jordan for sending me a Riesling from the position Forster monster of his birthday. And at a tasting before auserlesenem audience in 1999 (ie 186 years old), it was a bottle rated not just as enjoyable, but even as phenomenal. In the basement of Bassermann-Jordan block, there are still stocks of vintage 1811th Incidentally, the year 1812 brought the next little wine and even 1813 was extremely poor. Allegedly by a frosty winter 1813/1814 was the first Rheingau Icewine produced.

There is a special story about five bottles of Chateau Haut-Brion, the 1811th U.S. banker Henry Sturgis Morgan (1900-1982) visited in 1931, the famous Parisian restaurant "Tour de l'Auberge". The owner makes it for a special tour of the wine cellar of the house and showed him where his precious rarity, namely the above-mentioned five bottles. Morgan wanted this Kreszenz buy at any price, but the owner was adamant and called them unmarketable. Shortly after the departure of Morgan from Paris had the restaurant owners realize with horror that two of the bottles were missing. In their place, he found a letter Morgan: "I'm sorry, I had to have your Haut-Brion. Please determine the price of a blank check is enclosed. "Thief was a bodyguard Morgan, a former gangster. The check is kept in the museum's collection of curiosities, the total was registered but never hawked.