Hamburg and Lübeck revisited

Not much to report in Hamburg this time apart from the news that Hanseaten Select may import Chinese wine again. This time we met Mike-Alexander Brede who is the enterprising man behind Europe's only importer of Chinese wine. He said it would be from different producers in the future. In Lübeck we found Weinhandelshaus H.F. von Melle - almost identical to Tesdorpf and in a parallel street as well as in many respects a parallel universe.

Von Melle is the more interesting if less pukka establishment from our point of view. There we found a rare bottling of Cabernet Dorsa



as well as a Regent
and a Dornfelder. There were several wines open for tasting and they were kind enough to let us try their Portugieser (jury still out) and yes, their Lübecker Rotspon! Finally we were able to prove the pudding. As readers (or was that reader?) of this blog will remember we thought this ancient marketing gag was beneath us on our first encounter months ago (see blog of 17.5.10) and the fact that the wine called Rotspon is just locally bottled stuff selected each year from places such as the Pays d'Oc doesn't seem to inhibit Lübeckers from buying it here,

there and even at the airport. We didn't buy it. Loaded down as we were we still dived into a general store with some bottles of wine on our way from von Melle to the Theatre and here we found a bottle of Samtrot - a rarity indeed. Samtrot is said to be a clone of Pinot Meunier (Schwarzriesling) with its own character. We couldn't resist and have high hopes based of the Grafen Neipperg provenance and reassuringly high price.

At Lübeck Airport (Ryanair customers take note) there is Dornfelder and Sylvaner to be had at reasonable prices.