Wine With Jimmy

Wine With Jimmy Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Wine With Jimmy, Food consultant, 71 Townmead Road Fulham, London, London.

It’s the all-important infectious enthusiasm and passion for the world of wine that enables Jimmy Smith to communicate to his audience in a relaxed, welcoming and fun way.

01/05/2026

🇩🇪The Dautel family is a leading producer in Württemberg with grape growing history going back 500 years. Located in Bonnigheim in between Heilbronn and Stuttgart.

🇩🇪Christian’s farther Ernst Dautel was the first generation in his family to attend winemaking school in Geisenheim in the 1970s. When he returned home he decided to stop working with the co-op, though his father was one of the founding members of the coop in Meimsheim(!). Ernst was a pioneer and one of the first producers in the Württemberg to estate bottle wines. Christian was exposed to wine at a very young age and has extensive global wine experience, and mostly he is a top lad.

🇩🇪Ernst Dautel was an early adopter of barrique use, a champion of Chardonnay long before it was thought viable or fashionable in Germany, and a pioneer of green harvests to improve quality. Ernst became well known, in part for challenging the status quo in the region but also for making excellent wines, though they were not always regionally accepted. He joined the VDP in 1999 and the estate remains one of the very best in Württemberg. Today Dautel organically farm 20ha including four Grand Cru sites: Michaelsberg (coloured marl), Steingrüben (Schilfsandstein), Schupen (Gipskeuper, weathered limestone) and Forstberg (coloured marl and stony clay with limestone inclusions), and two 1er Cru sites; Sonnenberg (Schilfsandstein, Gipskeuper) and Wurmberg (Muschelkalk).

❓Have you ever tasted wines from this pioneering iconic Württemberg estate? If you haven’t, you should - the Chardonnays especially are terrific.

Imported into the UK by

Dautel wines are featuring on the school German Wine Scholar. The next course starts in Autumn 2026.

✅I have built a comprehensive course ‘Mastering Germany’ on the Wine With Jimmy Club featuring 80
Pre-recorded classes taught by me, and around 60 location videos and interviews. Visit Wine With Jimmy to subscribe for just £3.99/month.

30/04/2026

🍷Outstanding Grand Cru Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder) from Pfalz, Germany. “I’m not spitting that one out” 🤣

🇩🇪I recently hosted the talented Philipp Kuhn from Laumersheim in the Pfalz at school and was thoroughly excited about the quality across his excellent range.

🍷Here is my tasting note on the Pinot Blanc Laumersheimer Kirschgarten Pinot Blanc 2023.

🍷Included my FULL TASTING NOTES (make sure you watch through) and also FULL WINE DETAILS.

✅ Philipp Kuhn features on the world’s first-ever in-person German Wine Scholar course at West London Wine School starting this week (Thursday 30th April). There is still three places up for grabs - visit www.westlondonwineschool.com TONIGHT!

👀Philipp Kuhn is seeking UK representation - this would be an excellent feature on any wine list.

29/04/2026

🇩🇪Here I’m standing in front of the famous volcanic outcrop of the Rotenfels in the Nahe region in Germany. In front and at the foothills is the tiny but mighty Bastei vineyard, belonging to the nearby village of Traisen.

🪨Rotentels (327 m/1,073 ft) is the highest steep-face cliff north of the Alps. It is not the height of this volcanic massif, but its dramatic disruption of an otherwise gentle, rolling landscape that makes it a Nahe landmark. It took hundreds of thousands of years for the Nahe River to carve its way into the rhyolitic rock.

🍇At the foot of the Rotenfels is the Traisener Bastei, a long, thin vineyard that stretches improbably between cliff and river. The 4.1ha vineyard has a warm, protected mesoclimate. The cliffs and water reflect sunlight onto these vines with high solar intensity. At the same time, the cliff shelters the site from cold winds. Soils are rocky porphyry and loam.
Riesling is the principle variety.

produce a small volume from here, and it shows powerful roundness as a dry Grosses Gewächs. Have you tasted this or any other Bastei wine? Unicorn wine!

27/04/2026

🍷Great value-for-money Chardonnay alert!

🇩🇪I recently hosted the talented Philipp Kuhn from Laumersheim in the Pfalz at school and was thoroughly excited about the quality across his excellent range

🍷Here is my tasting note on the Dirmstein Vom Kalkmergel Chardonnay 2024. Superb VFM (value-for-money)

🍷Included my FULL TASTING NOTES (make sure you watch through) and also FULL WINE DETAILS.

✅ Philipp Kuhn features on the world’s first-ever in-person German Wine Scholar course at West London Wine School starting this week (Thursday 30th April). There is still three places up for grabs - visit www.westlondonwineschool.com

👀Philipp Kuhn is seeking UK representation - this would be an excellent feature on any wine list.

25/04/2026

🇩🇪I recently hosted Philipp Kuhn from Laumersheim in the Pfalz at school and was thoroughly excited about the quality across his excellent range (as I was when I met Philipp back in 2025… don’t mention the manic driving to get me to my train after the tasting!)

🍷Here is my tasting note on the Riesling Grosses Gewächs Schwarzer Herrgott 2023. Grosses Gewächs (GG) is terminology that in essence means ‘Grand Cru.’

🍷Included my FULL TASTING NOTES (make sure you watch through) and also FULL WINE DETAILS.

✅ Philipp Kuhn features on the world’s first-ever in-person German Wine Scholar course at West London Wine School starting next week (Thursday 30th April). There is still three places up for grabs - visit www.westlondonwineschool.com

👀Philipp Kuhn is seeking UK representation (I am amazed by this, and I am so tempted to start my import business…)

winelover

24/04/2026

I recently hosted the talented Philipp Kuhn from Laumersheim in the Pfalz at school and was thoroughly excited about the quality across the range (as I was when I met Philipp back in 2025). Here is my tasting note on the Riesling Grosses Gewächs Saumagen 2023. Part 2 on the Schwarzer Herrgott Riesling coming next.

Philipp Kuhn is seeking UK representation.

18/04/2026

Here I am in the Mönchberg cru vineyard in Mayschoss, Ahr, Germany. Talkin’ dirt 🪨

🪨 Ahr Valley bedrock and soils mostly consist of Devonian slate and Grauwacke (Greywacke - sandstone) with some basalt, loess and loam that retain warmth and allow for a fine balance of moisture retention in dry years and excellent drainage in wet ones. During the Devonian period of the Paleozoic Era (420-360 MYA), this area was filled by an inland sea and sedimentation laid down that would later harden into slate, quartz and grauwacke. In the early Cenozoic (roughly 60 MYA) tectonic shifts created a zone of weakness that formed a saddle, or low point, between two areas of higher elevation. The folding processes that created the Rhenish Massif then pushed up that saddle. The central Ahr Valley experienced the steepest uplift. Because slate and grauwacke are easily eroded and weathered, the meandering river was able to gouge a spectacular canyon through the landscape.

🪨In the western and middle portions of the Ahr (from Altenahr to Ahrweiler), gray and blue slates and grauwacke are common, but the middle area has more grauwacke with some loess-loam. The eastern section is a mix of sandstone, slate and loess but also includes a patch of volcanic bedrock (around Heppingen).

✅ I am using some excellent examples of Ahr valley wines in my forthcoming German Wine Scholar course at West London Wine School (this is the first ever worldwide classroom course of the GWS). In addition on the portal you can subscribe (£3.99/month) to the Wine With Jimmy Club for access to the Mastering Germany series with tonnes of video content including exclusive interviews.

17/04/2026

Here I introduce the Saar district of the Mosel, and a key vineyard of Schloss Saarfelser Schlossberg, a grand cru monopole of the charitable foundation of in Serrig. This is the highest altitude village in the Mosel.

The district follows the river of the same name from its junction with the Mosel at the city of Konz, just west of Trier in the north, upstream to Taben-Rodt in the south, a distance of some 17 kilometers (11mi) as the crow flies.

🌊In total, the Saar district has around 783ha (1,960 acres) of vineyards. Across the wider Mosel region, many vineyards belong to religious and charitable bodies based in Trier, and this is particularly the case in the Saar valley. Much of the district is open to cold easterly winds, and ripening grapes can be a struggle. The best vineyards are located on south-facing slopes where the vines are exposed to all-day sunshine, to encourage the ripening process.

🍇 The Schloss Saarfelser Schlossberg monopole is 4.2ha (10.4 acres) with gradients ranging 30-60% at 150m overlooking the village and stream both named Serrig. The geology is mostly grey slate. Its bordered by the modest castle rebuilt in 1912-14 (which I believe you can rent!)

🍷 The estate produces a range of styles including the dry Grosses Gewächs (GG), fruity Kabinett, and semi-dry feinherb Rieslings. Bottles often feature St. James (Sanctus Jacobus), referencing the foundation’s history of providing shelter to pilgrims.

16/04/2026

Johannes Hasselbach of .gunderloch in Nackenheim (Rheinhessen) introduces the ‘Roter Hang’ (Red Slope).

🏡 Weingut Gunderloch: This is a thriving estate of approximately 30ha. In Nackenheim they own the dominant portion of the grand cru Rothenberg (65% of the estate’s holdings) which is planted completely to Riesling. They also cultivate Pettenthal and Hipping grand crus. They farm sustainably with a keen eye on biodiversity and agroecology.

🪨The red hillside here between Nierstein and Nackenheim was formed over 280 million years ago because of a collapse of the rhine ditch between the basin of Mainz and the upper rhine ditch. The land was a sub-tropical desert depositing sand and compressing it into sandstone heavy in iron-oxides hence its reddish colour.

✅ I am using some excellent examples of .gunderloch grand cru wines in my forthcoming German Wine Scholar course at West London Wine School (this is the first ever worldwide classroom course of the GWS). In addition on the portal you can subscribe (£3.99/month) to the Wine With Jimmy Club for access to the Mastering Germany series with tonnes of video content including exclusive interviews.

In UK Gunderloch is available with

15/04/2026

🪨The red sandstone cliffs of Roxheim (Rocksheim!) in the Nahe are the oldest rock layers in the area of the local municipality. They are the fossilised sand dunes of a desert-like landscape that stretched out in the late Paleozoic era (approx. 541–252 million years ago) at the foot of what were then the barren hills of the Soonwald. At that time, the region lay in the climate zone of the subtropical deserts, in a position similar to today’s Sahara. In the desert-like plain, only sparse vegetation grew, allowing the wind to play a decisive role in shaping the landscape by piling up sand dunes. These finely layered, loose dune sands were, over the course of millions of years of Earth’s history, hardened into sandstone layers through impregnation (material deposition). They are a typical feature of the Kreuznach Formation and found in areas of Nahe and Rheinhessen (famed in the Roter Hang near Nierstein).

🪨It has low-moderate water retention, with good heat conductivity (especially as an exposed bedrock like the video). Wines are said to be mineral driven when made from grapes grown on this soils, often with good structure/body.

✅Learn about geological topics such as this on my forthcoming German Wine Scholar course at West London Wine School or by subscribing to the Wine With Jimmy Club at on the ‘Mastering Germany’ series for just £3.99/month.

14/04/2026

🇩🇪Georg Rumpf of discusses the Lower Nahe, the Hildegaards, the Abtei Rupertsberg single vineyard and surrounding area.

⛪️ The Abtei Rupertsberg vineyard was once planted by the universal scholar Saint Hildegard of Bingen. 70% gradient, vines up to 85 years old and phyllite soil make this wine unique. It belongs to the town of Bingerbrück.

✅The excellent Kruger-Rumpf Abtei Rupertsberg will feature on the forthcoming exciting and in-depth German Wine Scholar course at West London Wine School (starting end of April). Also there are more interviews with Georg and many other key producers on the ‘Mastering Germany’ series which is a part of the monthly subscription Wine With Jimmy Club for just £3.99/month.

12/04/2026

Here I sadly talk about the dramatic floods of 14-15 July 2021 in the Ahr, that as a result of climate change, are likely to become more frequent.

These dramatic floods killed more than 220 people in Europe, leaving a trail of destruction in Germany and Belgium, and damage in the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland. Western Germany was worst-hit by the flooding. The state of Rhineland-Palatinate registered 49 deaths, while North Rhine-Westphalia said 135 were killed. The total cost of the damage in Germany is estimated to be more than €40bn.

The Ahr rose by an average of 7 metres, with up to 10 metres recorded in some areas such as Mayschoss and Dernau. During the flood, the owners of too producer Meyer-Näkel—sisters Meike and Dörte—were able to escape their flooded wine cellar but were immediately carried away by the relentless waves. Their only hope was to hold on to a tree, where they remained for eight hours until they were rescued. Their entire 2020 vintage, the product of years of care and cultivation, was wiped away.

There is a long road to recovery for this region. After 5 years, bridges are still being rebuilt (18 were destroyed), houses and commercial outlets demolished and re-landscaped. But the inhabitants are strong and determined, and we should all support them by investigating (buying) the region and their wines more. The wines, especially Spätburgunder, can be world-class.

I am hosting West London Wine School’s first ever German Wine Scholar starting on 30/04/26 (for 8 nights) and also you can access my in-depth ‘Mastering Germany’ series on Wine With Jimmy for just £3.99/month

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