Rheinhessen silvaner and penne with tomatoes and peppers

I must confess I’ve never associated German wines with pasta dishes especially ones based on summer vegetables like tomatoes and peppers but then I haven’t come across many genuinely dry German wines in Italian restaurants before.

This was our lunch on the first day of my current trip to Germany at Weingut Brüder Dr. Becker who make biodynamic wines in the village of Ludgwigshöhe in the Rheinhessen.

They make a couple of silvaners - a local grape for the region - both dry: a simple crisp fruity ‘Grüner Silvaner’ and a village wine - the Ludwigshöhe Silvaner which is fermented in large wooden vats and left on its lees for greater complexity. Neither, sadly, is available in the UK at the moment.

For lunch they laid out a summery spread of gazpacho and big dishes of vegetable pasta, obviously made with locally grown ingredients. As well as the penne, which was quite piquant, there was a linguine with chanterelles, chives and parmesan. Oh, and a generous bowl of freshly made pesto to spoon over them.

The silvaners were similar to drinking dry Italian whites - i.e. a very good match. Their rieslings went well too but I’ll be posting some more thoughts on matching German riesling after the trip.

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