Is this the shape of things to come?

A RESTAURANT reviewer colleague of mine once claimed to have ordered a nice bottle of Mateus ros. That's all you get, a nice bottle - you can forget the contents. That bottle shape though, called a bocksbeutel in Germany, originates in the wine-producing region of Franken.

Interestingly, the shape of the bottles was modelled on nature. Apparently Franconian monks discovered that a certain part of a billy goat, which nanny goats don't have, made for a wonderful wine holder; after a quick stint in the tannery.

The bocksbeutel is seen as a mark of quality, and an indicator of Franconian individuality. Trouble is, the damn things don't fit in my wine rack.

Wines from bocksbeutels (glass ones) were running freely at our dinner stop in Franken, the Romantikhotel in Volkach. Classy, minerally silvaners, Muller-Thurgau and rieslings, from the Zur Schwanne and Juliusspital Wurzburg estates, were a great pairing with a mound of asparagus.

The asparagus was perfectly cooked and had been pulled from the ground only three hours previously.

Finishing off a great meal in Germany is easy too. Eiswein is the drink to have. For those of you who have never tried it, eiswein is a very sweet, pleasantly syrupy wine made from frozen grapes.

Quality grapes are left on the vine deliberately in the hope that the temperature will drop below minus eight Celsius sometime in December or early January.

If it does, the whole vineyard workforce is called to duty, harvesting and pressing the grapes before they thaw. All that effort makes for the most intensely flavoured wines which are much cherished by those that produce them.

In the morning, our coach headed for a vineyard in Wipfeld. Vineyards line the snaking course of the River Main, which runs through Franken eventually joining the Rhine. Unusually, for the area, it was raining. Our German hosts delighted in saying that they had arranged for this weather, to make us feel at home.

I was glad to note that the tasting at the vineyard in Wipfeld was undercover. Top of my list to try from the Gebietswinzergenossenschaft Franken (GWF) tasting was a wine made from the red domina grape.

"It means in German a special lady," said Ulrikhe Bahm of the Deutsches Weininstitut.

"You know the ones with leather and high-heeled boots,"she added coyly.

The grape is a cross of spatburgunder and portugeiser. The 2001 Wipfelder Zehntgraf Domina trocken I tried had nice soft tannins and kirsch notes.

We moved to Nordheim for our lunch at the Winzergenossenschaft Nordheim (WGN) which boasts a newly built reception, conferencing and tasting rooms, an art gallery and bistro.

I was impressed with Juventa Riesling 2003 trocken which was dry, rich in minerally flavours and immensely drinkable. If this wine were available in the UK, I was told it would cost £5. That would be £5 very well spent. I left the WGN with the lingering flavours of the Divino Merlot 2002, a nice drop with oak and cassis in good proportions.

The last stop in Franken and the last in Germany before my return home, was probably the best of all. Horst Sauer makes winemaking an art form at his estate in Escherndorf. It's home to the Eschendorfer Lump, Herr Sauer's legendary vineyard.

Most of the wines Horst put before us came from the "Lump" but strangely my favourite was from the Escherndorfer Furstenberg.

The 2002 Escherndorfer Furstenberg Silvaner trocken "Sehnsuct" has delicate hints of pear, peach and melon in its earthy elegance. Four months in a barrique has lifted this wine further, imparting just a dusting of oak to the finish. Sehnsuct, I was told, doesn't translate easily. It means something along the lines of desire, longing or passion. That's a good name for a wine like this.

I tasted some great wine in Germany. I'd love to see more shelf space given to such wines at my local supermarket, not just the rieslings but the silvaners, spatburgunders and lembergers too.

I can't see that happening in a hurry however. And by the way, I haven't had sekts once since coming home.

Horst Sauer wines are available in this country from Justerini & Brooks in London, telephone 0207 4846400 and Noel Young Wines, in Cambridge, www.nywines.co.uk or telephone 01223 844744.

I WAS pleased to receive some feedback on last week's report about Wurttemberg. I was contacted by Simone Pfuderer who used to live in that part of Germany but has been in York for seven years. It turns out her parents have a small vineyard near Marbach where they grow lemberger grapes, the very same grapes used in the production of Marbacher Neckarhalde Lemberger 2000 trocken barrique which I mentioned in the article. It's a small world, isn't it?

Franken fact file:

Location: Franken, the hilly region east of Frankfurt, lies between the Spessart Hills and the Steigerwald.

Main wine varieties:

The whites - silvaner, bacchus, Muller-Thurgau, and riesling

The reds - spatburgunder (pinot noir) , schwarzriesling (pinot meunier), portugeiser and domina.

Wine fact: Franken's continental climate means longer, colder winters - so the late-ripening riesling grape plays a lesser role here.

Quote of the day: "You surprised us by coming from the backside!" This from a translator working at a vineyard in Wipfeld as our coach approached from an unexpected direction.

Updated: 08:21 Monday, May 31, 2004