Melancholy apple wormwood wine

Wehmut Apple Vermouth Wine in a clay jug by the Jörg Geiger manufactory

The Wehmut from the Jörg Geiger manufactory is an apple vermouth wine, an apple wine with the bitterness of wormwood. In the meadow orchard landscape of the Swabian Jura, apples, pears, and to this day, wormwood still grow. Bitter is the new sweet! For a few years now, bitterness has been returning to the glass, and wormwood is just such a bitter herb.

Innovator Jörg Geiger always has his finger on the pulse, and so he brought wormwood and apple wine together. Bittersweet apples and wormwood ferment spontaneously in a used whisky barrel and continue to mature there. A barrel-aged brandy made from apples and grapes brings the Wehmut to 13 percent alcohol, after which it is bottled in clay jugs.

The wormwood with its clear bitter notes comes from the Sonnenhof in Bad Boll. The sophisticated recipe with cardamom, ginger, cowslip, vanilla, hazelnut leaves, anise, bay leaf, and lemon verbena gives the Wehmut complexity and depth. Juice from dried Palmisch and Nägeles pears rounds off the bitter notes of the apple.

The Wehmut is a commitment to the genuine bitter note of wormwood. It smells of honey and white flowers, ripe apricots meet lemony notes, and in the finish, anise and ginger join in. As sweet as it seems in the opening, it is spicy and tart in the finale.

Neat on ice or lengthened with Prisecco

The Wehmut is served neat at 14 to 16 degrees or on ice. For a long drink, add 2 cl of Wehmut to 5 cl of the house's non-alcoholic Prisecco cuvée, such as these:

• Organic Cuvée White with Apple – Quince – Acacia blossom
• Cuvée No. 12 Pinot Meunier – Currant twigs
• Cuvée No. 21 with Apple – Pear – Hay flower
• Cuvée No. 29 with Pear – Apple – Rosehip