It was a sunny June afternoon in 2011, and I was pulling into Weingut Wagner-Stempel’s resplendent courtyard for the first time. My future friend, Oliver Müller, was busy pouring wine samples to a number of guests who enjoyed their sips under the merciful shade of a 300-year-old chestnut tree. I introduced myself and I’ll never forget the bewildered expression on Oliver’s face when I told him that I had come from Canada in search of Riesling. 

It seems that I'm the first human to stir. Disoriented by jetlag and fuelled by excitement, I give up on sleep long before the day dawns. After the final nocturnal trains, there's a depth of silence when one can hear the vines exhaling as they, too, enjoy the stillness. Before long, gleeful birdsong begins to pierce the expiring darkness. I tie my shoes and leave the hotel by the side door.

It was late at night and I was almost home, riding my bicycle through the quiet streets of an adjacent neighbourhood. I entered the dead end of a cul-de-sac through a pedestrian path, pedalling along a short street that remained at stark odds with the relative gentrification around it. Its run-down apartment buildings and houses did little to belie the disproportionate occupancy by miscreants, drunks, hard drug users and general down-and-outers. 

Despite the respect and adulation that they receive in Germany, Spreitzer's wines are criminally underappreciated in Canada. I've got a few conjectures as to why this might be, all of which involve brothers Andi and Bernd Spreitzer being refreshingly impervious to the wine world’s dubious fashions. On the other hand, they consistently produce excellent Riesling over a wide range of styles and at completely reasonable prices — and what could be more exciting and praiseworthy than that?!?