KABINETT OF SURPRISES
The years are long in winemaking, and traditions loom longer. Just ask 41-year-old Kai Schätzel, who hails from a 650-year-old winegrowing family in Nierstein, in the Rheinhessen.
Rheinhessen in the Rhine Valley, bordered by the Nahe River on the west and by the Rhine on the north and east, is Germany’s oldest and largest wine growing area, with 70% of its production dominated by white grapes and in previous times, sweet white bulk grape blends known as liebfraumilch.
“The ’80s were quite sad for German wine,” Schätzel acknowledges over our Zoom interview. “As a many-generation
