What to eat with dry Riesling? Turbot, butter and the Rebholz twins of the Pfalz.

A family devoted to dry wine

The Rebholz winemaking tradition goes back to the 16th century, and today twins Hans and Valentin run the estate in the southern Pfalz, having joined the family business in 2018. Their great-grandfather was a pioneer of high quality wine in this part of the region, and from the start the focus was on dry wines only. Their father, who began in 1978, still works alongside them, and the twins are glad of every year of experience he brings.

The brothers split responsibilities but do much of the work together, with the whole team in both vineyard and cellar. Their view is that you cannot understand a wine in the cellar unless you have worked in the vineyard.

For Andreas, who has bought wine for half his life, knowing the people behind a bottle matters. There are many good wines out there, he says, but a personal connection makes them more fun, and very often the character of the winemaker shows in the glass: shy people make polished wines, loud ones make big, rustic wines.

Pfalz terroir and the Kastanienbusch

The Pfalz sits just north of Alsace, and the twins point out that the Palatinate Forest and the Vosges are really the same mountains, with a border in between. The estate works with sandstone, granite, limestone and slate. Riesling makes up around 45% of the vineyards, alongside Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Muscat, Gewürztraminer, some Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Their top site is the Kastanienbusch, a well-known Grand Cru vineyard; Kastanien means chestnuts. The wine is a Grosses Gewächs, or GG, the top dry wine from a Grosse Lage vineyard. They pour the 2015, from a hot summer that still kept elegant acidity and freshness, and it is just starting to open.

Comparing themselves with Alsace, the twins say the soils are nearly identical, so the differences come down to style. Andreas recalls that the Alsatians used to say the Germans make sweet wines while they make dry ones; today the roles have changed, and for consumers it can be harder to know whether an Alsace bottle is dry.

Turbot with kale and mustard hollandaise

Andreas builds a rich dish around the Riesling: grilled turbot, kale sautéed with pancetta, and a hollandaise made with a reduction of white wine and lemon juice, a touch of Dijon and mustard seeds marinated in Riesling for crunch. The reduction gives the sauce freshness, and the twins taste and approve it as Riesling friendly.

The pairing logic is clear. A dish with this much butter, egg and intensity needs a wine with concentration and freshness. Dry Riesling cuts through fat and protein and copes with the acidity of mustard, wine and lemon, while the food helps the wine open up even more.

German Pinot Noir and game

The twins also bring a 2013 Spätburgunder, the German name for Pinot Noir. Andreas notes that the grape has a long history in Germany, arriving with the monks, and that the country has one of the largest plantings of Pinot Noir in the world. The old German style was made without oak aging or malolactic fermentation and could be sharp; today the estate gives the grapes longer time on the skins and ages in barrels. Being hunters, the brothers love it with deer and a slightly sweet sauce.

The name Spätburgunder means the late Burgundian, as opposed to an early-ripening relative called Frühburgunder, but as Andreas says, everyone understands Pinot Noir.

A blind white and a luxurious pasta

Then the twins hand Andreas a bottle to taste blind. It is a serious white with discreet oak, ripe citrus, vanilla, roasted hazelnut, fresh butter and a long, textured palate. From the fridge come lobster and caviar, and Andreas makes linguine with lobster poached in a beurre monté scented with Madagascar vanilla, a hint of chili, tarragon and thyme, finished with caviar for salt.

Vanilla is his bridge to the oak in the glass. Watch to find out where Andreas places the wine, why the twins chose it, and how the brothers fare as a tag team in the food and wine memory game.

Go furtherWant to taste along? Find Ökonomierat Rebholz’s wines and where to buy them near you on Wine-Searcher. To explore the estates, vineyards and wines of the Pfalz and Germany further, the wein.plus wine guide is a great resource.