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1 month ago | 
news.wine.co.za | Valerie Kathawala
In January, hundreds of people gathered in New York City for a glittering, sold-out celebration of German wine. Rieslingfeier, an event modeled on La Paulée, filled an elegant hall with collectors, consumers, and trade. As they elbowed for pours from icons like Julia and Klaus Peter Keller and Katharina Prüm or selfies with Julian Haart and Lara Haag, everyone was in full agreement: these producers—and their peers—have ushered in a golden age for German wine.
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1 month ago | 
daily.sevenfifty.com | Valerie Kathawala
In January, hundreds of people gathered in New York City for a glittering, sold-out celebration of German wine. Rieslingfeier, an event modeled on La Paulée, filled an elegant hall with collectors, consumers, and trade. As they elbowed for pours from icons like Julia and Klaus Peter Keller and Katharina Prüm or selfies with Julian Haart and Lara Haag, everyone was in full agreement: these producers—and their peers—have ushered in a golden age for German wine.
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1 month ago | 
trinkmag.com | Valerie Kathawala
“Germans are particularly nostalgic about the food of their grandmothers,” writes Luisa Weiss, furnishing a sturdy thesis for her handsome, welcoming new cookbook. Weiss, whom you may — should — know, is a food writer. She was born, partly raised, and now lives full-time in Berlin. She blogged about food for more than a decade from New York as The Wednesday Chef, then moved to Germany.
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Jan 12, 2025 | 
trinkmag.com | Valerie Kathawala
By • January 12, 2025 • Volume 21, The Pinot Edition • Germany, Austria, Uncategorized Whether you’re dropping into town for the bacchanalia that is Rieslingfeier or you’re a native New Yorker curious to get a taste of the latest and greatest in German and Austrian wines, here’s your hit list of bars and restaurants that make NYC the country’s best (if priciest) city to drink auf Deutsch.
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Oct 29, 2024 | 
circleofwinewriters.org | Amanda Barnes |Valerie Kathawala
Valerie Kathawala is inspired by Natural Trailblazers, a recently-published book that profiles European winegrowers who are pioneering ways of reducing wine’s environmental impact. She argues that there are implicit lessons about how we wine journalists might rethink approaches to our own work. ‘What guides me is the idea of less,’ says Alsatian winegrower Yannick Meckert.
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Oct 14, 2024 | 
trinkmag.com | Valerie Kathawala
This article is adapted from Natural Trailblazers: 13 Ways to Climate-Friendly Wine, to be published on 21 October 2024 and currently available for pre-order. In the Swiss Alps, husband-and-wife Romaine and Hans-Peter Schmidt have created an island for humans and animals, insects and microbes to thrive in a sea of conventional vineyards. A combination of no-till, green manure, vitoforestry, and biochar makes their legendary winery Mythopia carbon neutral in the vineyard.
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Aug 15, 2024 | 
trinkmag.com | Valerie Kathawala
A lot has happened in German wine over the past 50 years — good, bad, and never been better. Through it all (and long before), one association of German fine wine producers, the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter, or VDP, has elected itself to fly the standard of German wine. Arguably, the association has done more than any other group to protect and advance the reputation of German wine at home and abroad. But it finds itself at a crossroads, along with the rest of the wine world.
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May 20, 2024 | 
trinkmag.com | Valerie Kathawala
Matthias Meier is the dynamo behind Weingut Matthias Meier and a co-founder of Mythos Mosel. TRINK asked him to fill us in on what this unique annual festival – celebrating its tenth anniversary this year — is about. The interview was edited for concision and clarity. The initial spark was an article in a leading German newspaper back in August 2013 that characterized the Mosel as a region that lagged behind the state of art, specifically in wine and food.
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May 7, 2024 | 
trinkmag.com | Valerie Kathawala
Arriving at the Karthäuserhof, a visitor is met with silence. Here on the outskirts of the city of Trier, houses thin, forests thicken, elevation climbs. A long driveway ends at stone gates whose finials have been lost to time. A clutch of handsome buildings, painted pale buttercream and wearing an air of genteel disrepair, stand in a clearing. A blocky, ancient-looking structure crowned by a clock tower appears to be held upright by a massive scaffold grid.
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Dec 20, 2023 | 
artofeating.com | Valerie Kathawala
Deirdre Heekin at La Garagista in Barnard, Vermont. 2023 | No. 112By Valerie Kathawala
Vermont has quickly and unexpectedly become one of the most talked about and admired regions in the wine world, drawing journalists, sommeliers, and would-be wine growers and makers. But much of what makes Vermont wine so beguiling — its small scale, unusual varieties, cool climate, and largely unexplored terroir — also threatens to limit it. Labor is scarce. Financial barriers to entry are high.
