Wines and fine foods at Forum Vini
By: David Douglas
The last three years I’ve attended Forum Vini, a fantastic wine convention at the M.O.C. Convention Center in the Freimann quarter of Munich. Every time I enjoy it even more, and this has become one of my favorite Munich events of the year. One can sample wines from all over Europe, taste unique liqueurs and brandies, and sample all kinds of delicacies from extra virgin olive oil to chocolate coated pumpkin seeds.
These are a few of my favorite memories from Forum Vini 2009:
Steinwaelder Hausbrennerei Schramml had a lot of interesting spirits on display! Stonewood 1818 Bavarian single malt whiskey, a Christmas liqueur, and a Zoigl brandy were nicely arranged in the front for my photographic pleasure. The last was very interesting to me: it’s made from beer of small micro/home-brewers who are allowed to sell their own beer (I wasn’t exactly sure but it sounded like a kind of club or special organization). So this is a brandy made from the very best of homebrewed beer!
Specialty liqueurs from Steinwälder Hausbrennerei Schramml
Next up: tasty pumpkin seeds (wasabi, dark chocolate, milk chocolate+cinnamon… choose your favorite) and other specialties from Dr. Schätzl of Moosburg. Here’s the pumpkin seed oil… which is GREAT on salads.
Pumpkin seed oil from Dr. Schätzl of Moosburg
Here’s an Italian stand, Palmieri Weinshop, where the proprietor was fantasic and friendly, and I must say, the most enthusiastic person at the show… rightfully so, because the wines were great! I especially loved the award-winning Unico Chardonnay.
Italian wines from Palmieri Weinshop in Dachau
The stand with my favorite fortified wines of the evening: Bodegas Tradicion, where they have sherries aged for 20, 30, or more years. I bought a 0.375 bottle of the Oloroso, which has an average age (in cask!) of 42 years.
Premium, very-long-aged sherries from Bodegas Tradicion in Jerez
I’ll finish this post where I finished the evening at Forum Vini: Weingut Michel-Roos has a fantastic array of German-made food delicacies as well as many specialty wines. The Beerenauslese (dessert wine made with late-season, specially harvested grapes) was amazing. When I was there they cracked open several different cans of German meat and slathered them on hearty bread with a bit of mustard on top. Fantastic! (note, these folks aren’t the proprietors, but the pose was just perfect).
Hospitality award of the night goes to Michel-Roos where many cans of Worscht were shared around in a fantastic atmosphere!
A note about photographing at such an event: the main ceiling lights are all fluorescent. This gives an evil green tint to everything. If you use the camera’s flash, you’ll get better lighting… but all the backgrounds will look greenish where they are lit by the overhead lights instead of your flash. The best is to use a D-SLR with a gel on the flash which makes it output fluorescent-friendly light, and set your camera’s white balance to fluorescent.
BUT… there’s one problem, because many of the stands have auxiliary “hot” incandescent lights with their orangey cast. So you’ll get some photos that are hard to correct in a photo program because they have some green and some orange tints in different areas of the picture. Not much you can do about this; I mostly chose shots where the lighting was consistent, and edited the h*ll out of the others.
Getting to Forum Vini:
- First off, check out the timing of this event for next year (likely November) at the Forum Vini Website.
- Don’t fret about the entry fee (which was €17 in 2009), it’s well worth it. Arrive early and you can have hours and hours of wine tasting, all for the price of two cocktails in most Munich bars.
- The M.O.C. is located near the Kieferngarten U6. There is also parking, although I wouldn’t recommend you drive to a wine event. I always take the subway so I can sample as many wines as I please. Google Map of the MOC
Full album of photos:
 Delicious French wines
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 Specialty seeds and oils
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 Chocolate-cinnamon pumpkin seeds
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 Pumpkin seed oil from Dr. Schätzl of Moosburg
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 Greilinger wines from Austria
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 Weingut Beiser, German wines
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 Premium, very-long-aged sherries from Bodegas Tradicion in Jerez
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 Italian specialties from Palmieri Weinshop in Dachau
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 Italian wines from Palmieri Weinshop in Dachau
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 The award-winning Unico Chardonnay
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 Olives of all kinds
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 Specialty liqueurs from Steinwälder Hausbrennerei Schramml
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 Golf-styled wines and brandy from Golf-Weingut Deppisch in Franken
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 Award-winning Beerenauslese (late harvest dessert wine) from Weingut Michel-Roos
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 German specialties at Weingut Michel-Roos
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 Hospitality award of the night goes to Michel-Roos where many cans of Worscht were shared around in a fantastic atmosphere!
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 Specialty schnapps and liqueurs from Brennerei Hubertus Vallendar
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