Schmitt Winzertanz 9% alcohol about $8 (1 liter bottle) No vintage year
The first pairing was with a commercial shepherd’s pie, perked up a bit with Thai Chili Sauce. The wine was quite pleasant, even if short and not complex. It was a bit sweet. I didn’t taste everything that was promised me, but broken wine promises are not restricted to low-priced offerings. The wine went well with dry, thin biscuits containing slices of almonds and pistachios.
I next paired this wine with cold salmon filet accompanied by a red (surely because of ketchup) mayonnaise sauce and pearl onions, and a tomato, cucumber, and red onion salad. The wine retained its fruit and was moderately long, but a bit thin, I don’t really recommend this Deutscher Tafelwein with such a high quality salmon dish, but it wasn’t bad, especially for the price. In the presence of a nut chocolate cake the wine was refreshingly acidic.
I tried the Winzertanz with leftover, reheated chicken and potatoes in a soya sauce-based gravy. The wine was appley and had a moderate length. I guess it is what you call a quaffing wine.
The final meal consisted of fried chicken breast strips, accompanied by green beans and rice. In this case the wine was fairly weak.
The Winzertanz was pleasant with a ripe French camembert cheese, handling it better than some of the more expensive wines that also accompanied this cheese. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the wine definitely held its own when paired with a German Limberger cheese that was starting to smell.
After I paired the wine with four meat dishes and two cheeses the bottle was still more than a third full. This wine can go a lot way, not because it is so jam-packed with flavor, but because I didn’t need to consume a lot in order to judge it. On the other hand, because it is pleasant and contains relatively little alcohol, you might find yourself drinking quite a bit. I don’t plan on finishing the bottle; I want to move on to other wines. But frankly, in some of my tastings the Winzertanz did a lot better than another, much more expensive wine. Final verdict. If I’m with a bunch of people who don’t want to spend a lot on wine and we are ordering simple food, I’ll be glad to drink this wine. In some ways it is quite a bargain. And I haven’t found too many bargains recently.
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