Berlin, Germany
Here is another of these very recent wine bars of Berlin (It's one year old to the day !), it is located on Gormannstraße, a quiet street also opportunely situated in the vicinity of the aptly-named U-Bahn station Weinmeister. Gormann straße is a quiet side street in Mitte, in what was a few decades ago east Berlin. This is a quiet area with a mix of new and older buildings.
On the wine bar website you can read in French
under the bar's name Bar à Vins Libres (libres __free in French__ for freedom and liveness I guess) which hints rightly that this wine bar is centered on natural wines. Further it explains that the wines here are made exclusively by small producers and winegrowers.
Maxime Boillat is from Switzerland (the French-speaking part) and he has been living in Berlin for 15 years now. But he had several lives before embarking on this wine thing, he took part to archeological excavations in Petra (Jordan) in 1997, he's also been a DJ in a techno club (Münzsalon), then he worked in various restaurants including, before opening Maxim, when he was running the restaurant HBC near Alexander PLatz. Maxime opened his place just a year ago with the intention to welcome wine lovers who just want to enjoy wine, and wines that are made naturally without correction or lab yeast.Although wine comes first here, if you want to eat there is a chef and a kitchen with 3 staff to prepare dishes that have been thought to go with a particular wine. I think that Maxim is the only wine bar in Berlin serving exclusively Naturweinen, wines that made from aus biologischem Anbau , that are made ohne Zusätze [I'll give you this one : without additives], ohne aufwändige Kellertechnik and that are unfiltriert gefüllt and often ungeschwefelt (I'm sure you already understand German thanks to your vinous culture...
For those of you who want who have German basics and wish to better their natural-wine lexicon, read the Naturwein page of Wikipedia. The history part of Naturwein is interesting because in Germany it started in the early 20th century in response to the correction techniques instituted by Ludwig Gall, a former proto-Marxist revolutionnary turned wine chemist (see story here).
B. and I dropped there unannounced (my policy) at maybe 6:30 pm (that's about the opening hour) and there was a large party already there, mostly men, and guess what, these guys were French. From what I understood (I didn't ask questions actually) they were living and working in Berlin, not visitors like us. When you walk in you face the bar part with the counter and on the left (watch your step) there's the main room with quite a few tables. The wine bar is one year old almost day for day when I publish this story, and it has already met a nice success.
Maxime Boillat is also doing a good job at bringing the Naturwein Kultur and aknowledgement into Germany, this country is having great beers that are overwhelmingly brewed naturally along the age-old Reinheitsgebot rules (on a volontary basis now, since the European Union banned these purity beer laws as illegal around 1990...), but when dealing with wines it seems to me that wine consumers here are still unaware that commercial wine is made with lots of corrections and added elements beginning with lab yeast. The understanding of natural wine in this country is often the one of a wine made without added sulfites, the person usually being unaware of the very long list of additives that are behind most of the wines sold on the market, and incidently by the way, SO2 is precisely maybe the only outside element which is admitted in a natural wine, even if in small dosages...
Anyway, Maxime Boillat does sometimes some educational ground work, for example last march he invited several people with among them Ulrich Amling from the Tagesspiegel and Stefan Vetter, a winegrower who works naturally on a small 2-hectare vineyard between Würzburg and Nüremberg (Bayern), and who explained that when you work your vineyard properly you don't need to make corrections on the juice and the wine in the cellar and vinification part. Story here in the Tagesspiegel. Maxim says that the consumers are still little aware of what natural wine is exactly, they read bio and think it's just a question of being organic and are often unaware of the additives-correction side in the cellar, something that even an organic estate can rely on if it wishes to. In Germany there are not many domaines that can really be considered as making natural wine, maybe 5 in total (considering those who don't use additives and use minimal-or-no so2).
The room is pretty elegant and well thought, and even though it's a wine bar (you're often squeezed in the Paris wine bars) there's some room here between the tables, no doubt we're in Berlin. I don't know if it's because of the destruction/reconstruction of the German capital around WW2 but eveything including the bars and appartments are more roomy here including for the ceiling height. We chatted a bit with Maxime but he had now and then to take care of the customers who were beginning to fill the room. On the right you can guess the "opened bottles" list, in other words the wines by the glass that day.
Maxim has about 100 different wines in his list, he says he has to put some order in that list and I understand that some of them are Ausgetrunken and some have arrived later and are not yet printed in there. He sources some of his wine direct and otherwise he buys wine from importers located in Berlin (2 of them, Viniculture and Weine Visentin), one in Köln (la Vincaillerie), one in Bochum (Vins Vivants) and one in Munich (Vinaturel). Wine importers specialized on natural wine is something new in Germany, it started maybe some 5 years ago to have momentum. The main players are La Vincaillerie in Köln and Vinature in Berlin while some of the others are importing some natural wines among a more mainstream wine portfolio. Vinature is a wine shop that exists since 1984 but 5 years ago they turned to natural wine very seriously.
germany wide, natural wine is still very marginal, but Maxim says it's growing.
If you're in Germany in the region of Köln, don't miss the professional Wein Salon Natürel organized by Surk-Ki at La Vincaillerie on march 14-15 2015.
Speaking of cochons (pigs in French), the website's url of the venue is evocating, it's vins-cochonneries.com, cochonneries can be interpreted as related to pork products but also as smut and obscene, and the concept of the pig is often present around natural-wine events or venues because there's an unrestrained and unrepentant pleasure of eating associated with the pig, you drink these wines often really without restraint.
As Maxime was saying that natural wines were still very little known in Germany, I asked for the reason as I thought there is a disconnect with the fact that their beer is very natural, he says that this major wine school in Geisenheim (nicknamed the Weinstadt here), the Hochschule für Weinbau und Oenologie in Geisenheim is playing a large part as it formats the winemakers to work scientifically with all the modern sprayings in the vineyard and the wide range of corrections and additives. All the German winegrowers go through Geisenheim and it's basically technology which is taught there, not really wine that is being made by itself without intervention. The wine industry is very active in the school and it doesn't help in this regard.
Then, he says there's the problem with the SO2 in Germany because they have a tradition of relatively sweet wines, it's now changing a bit with the young generation of wine amateurs but the older generation is still hooked on sugary wines. On the other hand he says, with Mosel's Rieslings there's no problem with sugar (which they have naturally with later pickings) because there's such a high acidity, the sweetness become light, aerial. But still, because of the residual sugar it's difficult to make SO2-free wines, and the SO2 issue is a bit like a taboo because there's the issue of stability and also of cleanliness and the Germans think you need sulfites for that.
I leafed through the wine list, not the one of the wall for the wines by the glass, but the bottles, here are a few picks :Champagne Moutard
Domaine Pignier Crémant du Jura (sparkling) 30 €; Domaine Pignier Savagnin 2009 43 €; Champagne Drappier, Champagne Moutard; Alsace Julien Meyer (3 cuvées) 30 €; Domaine de Bourgogne Aligoté la Tournelle; Jura Jean Macle Jura 2007 Cuvée Tradition; Alice & Olivier De Moor 55 € & Chablis 66 €; Bourgogne René Bouvier; Lucien Boillot Gevrey-Chambertin 2009 70 €; Jean Fery Vosne-Romanée 2006 85 €; Fanny Sabre Savigny-lès-Beaune 66 €; Olivier Jouan Hautes Côtes de Nuits 2010 45 € ; Alain Chavy Puligny-Montrachet 2009 1er Cru les Folatières 86 €; Beaujolais Domaine les Fines Graves; Jean Foillard 2011 34 €; Yvon Métras Fleurie Vieilles vignes 2011 48 €; Domaine des Terres Dorées Cuvée Premiere 23 € & Moulin à Vent 33 €;
Terres Dorées Fleurie Grille-Midi; Marcel Lapierre Morgon 2012 26 €; Le Rocher des Violettes (Loire) Cabernet Franc 2010 24 €; Domaine de Saurigny Gamma Gt 2011 33 €; Sébastien Riffault Sancerre Quarterons 2009 35 € " Sancerre Akméniné 2009 38 €; Domaine les Terres Brûlées Jean-Paul Brun Condrieu 2009 77 €; Matthieu Barret Crozes-Hermitage 2012 36 €; Yann Chave Hermitage 2010 935 €; Clos Fanti,ne5 €; la Ferme des 7 Lunes Saint Joseph; Domaine des Clavel cuvée Des Clous 2005 ; Clos Fantine Courtiol 2011 32 €; Domaine La boria 2011 La Bienvenue 28 €; Domaine Le Bout du Monde La Luce 2011 38 €; Domaine PLageoles 2010 Braucol Gaillac 26 €;
Lots of wines from Germany too, from the regions of Franken, Ahr, Mosel, Nahe, Rheingau & Pflaz. Here are a few picks : Weingut Trossen (Mosel), Enderle & Moll (Baden), Weingut Odinstal (Pfalz), Weingut Knauß (Franken), Stefan Vetter (Franken), Melsheimer (Mosel), Clemens Busch (Mosel).
Italy : 2 wines from Italy (Domaine Le Bout du Monde La Luce 2011),
Looking at the price of the French wines it seemed to me that there were very reasonably priced, so I asked Maxime if this was the price to go or really the price to drink in the bar, it's really the latter, he says that he likes people to drink more and keeps the prices low, adding just a fixed fee on to of the wines, not multiplicating the winery price by a ratio, and because of that, wines that are expensive at the winery are comparatively very cheap when you come here compared to other restaurants. He says that the sommeliers who work in restaurants often complain that they don't sell much of their high-end wines, but Maxim adds that if they add too much on top of the bottle price it's normal, and his own policy is to make so that people aren't shy of buying these bottles.
As I was leafing through the Weinbuch we engaged in a conversation with Maxime who showed up, I asked if there were that many wine bars in Berlin, he said there were a few like Ottorink in Kreuzberg, also Weinstein in Prenzlauer Berg, he told ma also about a very old wine bar managed by a 70-year-old man but I can't get the name on my notes. Then Cordobar of course too, and his own which opened just a year ago. One other is to, open soon : Thar, it will be associated with winegrowers of the Trento region (Adige valley)
One of the challenges of opening a wine bar in Germany is that you have to get people understand that the place is not a restaurant even if you can have food with the wine, in Germany it's usually the other way around. Plus, there's not yet the tradition of apéritif here, when you just open a bottle of wine and have it before eating, just enjoying the wine without knowing exactling how things will unfold after then, if there will be a regular meal or just small dishes coming in between glasses. Maxim says that when he arrived 15 years ago wine consumption was minimal, restaurants would typically have just one red and one white on their menu
You can peek on the blackboard listing the wines by the glass that day (Offene Weine for opened bottles), there are 16 them. W (for Weiss) or R for Rot, the prices start at 3,8 € and go up to 7,5 €, with one above. Most wines are French and a few are German.
We visited the Weinbar just before New Year and the special Silvestermenu was making us salivate :
Maxime travels sometimes to France and he is going to visit again a gem of a wine fair in the Jura, Le nez dans le Verre [means the nose in the glass) on march 23 & 23 2015 in Domaine de la Pinte in Arbois. Here is the list of the vignerons who take part. This looks indeed like my type of wine fair, reasonably small, and set in a small town with good vibes (Arbois is grerat in that sense), reminds me the tasting taking place in Auvergne, les Dix Vins Cochons (which takes place early december).
Speaking of Jura, B. chose a glass Jura Domaine Pignier Crémant du Jura (a sparkling), while I had this Oppenheimer Riesling 2012 by Weingut Burgermeister Carl Koch, a wine selected by Viniculture. I have no notes about the wine, I remember duscussing its lightly-sweet feel and learning it was really trocken.
I spoke a bit with Jan too, he's into wine for 7 or 8 years, and he learned French because he spent time in Paris working in an antiracist group there, the MRAP, he did that because he was conscientious objector and for that reason from what I understand he had to spent time in a social non-profit group. He discovered wines while working in a berlin restaurant with a good Burgundy wine list, then he travelled much, with wine in the background. He pursuied studies in the fields of economy and cultural communication and this sommelier job is a way to take distance and think about what path he'll take next.
The regular food at Maxim seems to be well selected too (and reasonably priced compared to Paris) and the cochon reference hints that there are a few joyous and tasty dishes. We leafed through the menu, you find patés en croûte (8,5 €) and kleine Platte of terrines, other charcuterie like salami, rillettes, also gerauchter Schinken (smoked ham), these small plates costing 2,5 € to 3,5 €. Käse one Stück 3 €, 3 Stück 8,5 €, 6 Stück 17 € with cheese like Brillat-Savarin, Epoisses, Langres, Vacherin, Mont D'Or, Pic de Bigorre, Comté Reserve, Bleu de Sassenage, that's what I call an appealing Käse list...
Pdf dicument about the Weinkultur in Berlin (in German, many pictures)
N.V. Domaine Pignier Crémant du Jura
Getrüffelte Topimanburschaum Süppschen mit Gemüseperlen
Occhipinti SP 68 bianco, Terre Siciliane IGT
Terrine vom Entenleber und Hummer dazu petit bouquet sauvage
Rosa gebratener Rehrücken auf Marronen Püree mit Grünen Kohl und Trompette de la Mort
Les Enfants Sauvages, le Roi des Léeards Fitou 2012
Käseauswahl von Maitre Anthony
Domaine Pignier Côte du Jura Cellier des Chartreux 2012
Mille-Feuille von Kürbis Kokosnuss und Schokolade
Bodegas César, Moscatel Especial
Price : 80 € with the wines, 55 € without
Hi Bert, you write about Berlin and its winebars - einfach wunderbar!
Posted by: Alex | January 19, 2015 at 06:50 PM
Just noticed the wine by the glass list and there is Les Enfants Sauvages! a great small bio production in Fitou who I visited when we lived there for 6 months. A great young German couple making grerat wine in Languedoc!
Posted by: Peter Wakefield | January 22, 2015 at 08:09 PM
Great Article.
Posted by: Andreas Durst | March 18, 2015 at 11:02 PM