german syrah with hearty lentil soup

6 minute read

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We’re staying in Germany this week, but with a wine much more out of left field than last week’s Riesling– a Syrah from Baden! This wine caught my eye simply because I hadn’t heard of Germany making Syrah – or any Rhône Valley varietals. But here it was, Syrah from a talented producer in my own backyard, Baden.

While Riesling obviously dominates Germany’s plantings, Pinot Noir reigns in Baden. In fact, Hanspeter Ziereisen, the maker of this week’s wine, started out with only Pinot Noir in mind. He reveres the wines and winemaking approach from Burgundy (Pinot Noir’s home) and aimed to emulate that style in his rather special Southern German location. Fortunately for us, his wife, Edel, urged him to also stay true to the other grapes typical of the region (namely Pinot Gris and Chasselas) and he later tried his hand at Syrah as well.

About Hanspeter Ziereisen

Weingut Hanspeter Ziereisen is located at the foothills of the Black Forrest. They’re perfectly located opposite the gap between the Vosges Mountains and the Jura. So unlike most vineyards in the area, their climate benefits from the “Burgundian gate” with its tempered Mediterranean winds and low annual precipitation.

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Weingut Ziereisen is devoted to making wines indicative of their terroir; they farm the land organically and with intense attention to detail. One of the tenants of the whole Ziereisen production is to be literally hands-on in the vineyard as well as in the winery. In the cellar, they practice “controlled idleness” by allowing the grapes plenty of time to ferment spontaneously and by approaching élèvage as naturally as possible.

This strategy is undoubtedly thoughtful, quality-first and detail-oriented, but it hasn’t always been seen as such. In fact, Ziereisen has deliberately chosen sell and market his wines under a traditionally lower quality categorization, called Landwein (as opposed to the higher quality, Qualitätswein). Find out why in the note on his Landwein Revolution below.

2015 Hanspeter Ziereisen Syrah

In any case, this passionate hands-on attention to detail is evident even in the entry level “Handgelesen” (hand-harvested) Syrah. The aromatics jump out of the glass with dark berry fruit, loads of savory characteristics, and ripe fine-grained tannins. See my full tasting notes below.

As a grape, Syrah is originally from the Rhône Valley in France, particularly the northern Rhône, where it’s famously grown on very steep slopes and makes age-worthy wines tasting of stewed black cherries, pepper, tobacco and leather. The grape also come to fame in Australia, where it’s known as Shiraz and where the best examples have powerful blackberry jam flavors, some beefy meatiness and a bit of mocha.

Unlike last week’s native German grape (Riesling), Syrah is happy to grow in a variety of climates and soils. Depending on which, it can make quite distinct wines and be paired with a relatively wide range of foods. At the same time, many regions now have a trademark style (even if the grape growing and winemaking practices aren’t governed by certain laws). So in picking up a Syrah from Cornas, France, I’ll have a good idea of what to expect. The same will also go for a bottle of Syrah I open from the Barossa Valley in Australia. Since this Syrah is from a region that doesn’t have a precedence for the grape, I was quite literally tasting blind. (Which sounds terrifying, but I promise it’s mostly fun!)

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Pairing German Syrah with Lentil Stew

I decided to treat this pairing as perhaps a restaurant diner might. That is, I picked the food I’d eat with the wine before I’d even tasted the latter. Instead of a sommelier or server helping me with my choice, I leaned on the notes of an online retailer I’ve come to trust here in Germany, Lobenbergs. (I find this the best way to try new things. Find a retailer, restaurant, wine bar or independent wine professional you trust and with whom you have a shared flavor-language. Use that as the platform to jump into new wines from. It will give you the best odds for success!)

Despite trusting Lobenbergs, I had my doubts about the pairing. In particular, about the tannins. Syrah is a thick-skinned grape and so can make very tannic wines that pair best with protein-rich and fatty foods. The lentils here definitely do offer some protein, but they don’t dominate this soup, which also has very little fat in it. So I was concerned a tannic wine might overwhelm even this hearty stew.

So how did it go?

It turns out I needn’t have worried. Without loads of protein, this soup still has lots of texture from the lentils, pasta and eggplant. And despite having a bit of bottle-age (or perhaps precisely because of that age), the tannins in this wine are fairly tame, even when the wine is drunk on its own. So they were well matched by a textured soup.

This was a great pairing for other reasons too. On one hand, the Syrah’s savory notes and herbaceous undertones could really sing alongside the earthy, stewed flavors of this soup. On the other hand, the fruit characteristics of the wine provided a bright contrast to this low-toned dish. I also noticed about midway through this pairing how lovely the stewed tomatoes are with the wine’s dark fruit notes, turning flavors of fresh black plum to more of an aged, almost stewed version. So cool!

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About the stew

This soup is modified from a version in one of my oldest cookbooks. You know, the kind that are permanently out of print, don’t have an e-book version, and whose pages are falling out? This one is so well-loved, with decade-old post-it notes marking recipes I still want to try. Big thanks to my mom for snagging it at TJ Maxx for $3.99 (the price tag is still inside the front cover). It’s the Williams-Sonoma Vegetarian “Food Made Fast.”

My version is a bit heartier and more of a meal. I wanted to be sure it had enough depth of flavor to stand up to the Syrah, so I added a mirepoix (celery, carrot and onion mix) for umami as well as vegetable stock (instead of water) and more spices than called for in the original recipe.

The original recipe is also quite quick (which is great!) but I had a bit more time, and so let the base simmer for a while. This really helped deepen the flavors for pairing with the wine. I added the pasta in towards the end, along with cooked lentils. And I liked topping it with some fresh tomatoes to brighten things up.

Sadly, I can’t find the original recipe to link to, and I don’t want to infringe copyrights by repeating it here. But I promise, my version is pretty tasty.

Tasting and other Notes