Oktoberfest, Riesling, and the Red Sox. You Have To Love October!

We have friends who host an annual Oktoberfest party. Every year it is a great time. Their party includes many of the Oktoberfest traditions. To begin with they convert their backyard into a Hofbräuhaus and they put up a 20 by 30 foot tent festively decorated with small white lights and the German flag. Traditionally, Oktoberfest is a festival held every year in Munich, Germany for 16 days up to and including the first Sunday in October. It is estimated about six million people attend every year.

I know you are saying that Oktoberfest is a beer event, not a wine event. However, each year I do my part by bringing various Riesling selections for those who wish to enjoy Germany’s most famous grape. Riesling goes very well with many of the traditional fares that our friends serve. The appetizers included soft Pretzels and pigs in a blanket. For dinner we enjoyed German hot dogs, Bratwurst (sausage made of pork & veal seasoned with ginger, nutmeg, & coriander) and my favorite, Weisswurst ("white Sausage" veal, cream & eggs), and Sauerkraut. With German potato salad on the side and German chocolate cake for dessert, we basically had a feast!

I brought four Rieslings and a Vidal Blanc “Ice Wine” for dessert. Three of the Rieslings were recommended and one was not. The Vidal Blanc Ice Wine was also a big hit. The best Riesling was the 2006 Château Ste. Michele “Eroica”. This wine was quite refined and very well received by all those who tried it. It is also very food friendly. This wine is consistently a crowd pleaser every year. We scored this wine “Very Good +.” The other two wines were rated as “Very Good”. Of those two wines I would say the 2005 Studert Prüm “Wehlener Sonnenuhr – Kabinett” was everyone’s second favorite wine of the Rieslings. In third place, was the Very Good 2006 Château Ste. Michele “Dry Riesling.”

We closed the evening with the Standing Stone 2005 “Vidal Ice” from the Finger Lakes. This was one of my favorite dessert wines that we discovered during our trip to the Finger Lakes region in August 2007. This wine, like the others, was a big crowd pleaser that didn’t last long in the bottle. Oktoberfest for wine lovers? Who knew?

So how about those Red Sox? With the Red Sox in the ALCS vs. the Cleveland Indians, our friends did not miss a beat with any of the die-hard Red Sox fans present. Outside, they hooked up a projector and sound system and showed the baseball game on the side of their shed. The picture was clear and the sound was good. The side of the shed was one of the biggest "flat screen T.V.'s" we have ever seen. Everyone could watch the game and enjoy the Oktoberfest at the same time. This was a great feature and everyone was able to see the game as if they were at Fenway Park.

This was a fun party and a great way to enjoy some very good Riesling, an Oktoberfest tradition, and the Red Sox-even if the team did blow it in the end at 1:30 A.M.! The faithful of Red Sox Nation will recover-even if they are a bit tired today! On to Cleveland for the next game tomorrow night. Go Sox!