World Cup of Wine Final

The World Cup was contested by two heavyweights, both in terms of football and wine. Argentina contested the first World Cup Final in 1930 and have won the competition twice, while Germany were appearing in their eighth final. It seemed only right, then, that two high-quality wines were pitted against one another.

Germany v Argentina

Germany has been making wine since vines were introduced by the Romans in the third century and the arrival of Christianity saw the craft of winemaking continued by Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries. Modern viticulture began in the eighteenth century, after a century of war had ravaged the landscape and the economy. It was during this century that Riesling became the dominant grape on the steep slopes of the rivers Rhine and Mosel, and many of the villages we still associate with Riesling gained their reputation from that time.

The great German Rieslings are identified by their sweetness, a feature which originates from the late picking of rotting grapes in cool October. It was in the eighteenth century that the current classifications of Auslese and Spätlese were introduced; improved selection of healthy and rotten grapes led to the further classifications of Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese in the nineteenth century, followed by the Eiswein category for grapes picked when frozen.

German wine labels, using terms developed centuries ago, are incredibly confusing. In general, if you see these terms, then they will have the following characteristics.

Trocken	a dry wine; grapes picked as normal during harvest
Kabinett	dry to medium sweet; light in style, with the sweeter wines having very low alcohol (8%). The term comes from the traditional use of the English word "cabinet" for quality wines.
Spätlese	dry to medium sweet; the grapes are picked at the end of the harvest when they are beginning to rot, increasing the level of residual sugar. A dry Spätlese can be particularly rich in style.
Auslese	dry to medium sweet; the grapes are selected for their amount of rot. More likely to have some sweetness, but a dry Auslese will have high alcohol.
Beerenauslese	sweet; overripe grapes are individually picked to create a rich, golden wine
Trockenbeerenauslese	lusciously sweet; the grapes picked are shrivelled by noble rot, producing a golden-orange wine. The painstaking selection of the grapes, as well as the quality of the wines, means that these are some of the most expensive wines in the world.
Eiswein	lusciously sweet; the grapes are picked in the middle of the night when the grapes are frozen and the temperature must be below -8°C.

In contrast, the development of modern German football is relatively recent. Its amateur system was only disbanded in the 1960s, giving way to the current, professional Bundesliga. The unexpected 1954 World Cup victory, only the country's second appearance at the tournament, was the moment when West Germany felt able to move on from the Second World War and see itself as a nation again. Since then, the national team has become one of the dominant forces of international football, winning the World Cup again in 1974 and 90 and reaching the final in 1966, 82, 86, and 2002.

the German commentator was famously quite excited by the 1954 winning goal

Clemens Busch Rothenpfad 2011 (c. £50)

the steep slopes of Pündericher Marienburg

The Mosel, a river that winds from Koblenz in western Germany into Luxembourg and France, is one of the most difficult areas in the world to grow vines. It's a cool climate, the vineyards are on steeply sloped terraces rising from the river, the grapes have to be picked by hand, and the soil is rocky - all this means, however, that the vines have to work hard to flower and the harder a vine works the greater the wine.

Clemens Busch is a small producer, holding just 13ha, who makes working the land on the Mosel even harder by only farming biodynamically (for instance, he climbs the slopes throughout the growing season to spray herbal tea on the vines). Most of his land is in the Pündericher Marienburg vineyard, which he divides into five different patches to mark the different soils which will influence the finished wines in individual ways.

Rothenpfad, meaning "red path," is one of those patches, just over a hectare in size. It had fallen into neglect, but Busch replanted it as well as maintaining seventy-year-old vines still living. The soils are red slate, which gives the wine delicate spicy flavours. The wine is a beautiful, expressive Riesling, but because it comes from a small patch of land on which the vines have had to work very hard, it's a difficult, particular wine. I imagine it may take a few years for this wine to express fully its dry, mineral, spice aromas and lose some of its intense concentration, but it will be well worth the wait.

Argentina: Argentinian wine has been shaped by colonialism and immigration: vines planted by Jesuit missionaries in the 1500s and modernised techniques introduced by Italian immigrants in the nineteenth century. The Jesuits established vineyards at the foothills of the Andes, where the Argentinian wine industry is still centred. The Andes are key for two reasons: water flows down from the snow-capped mountains to irrigate the vineyards and altitude allows a much longer ripening season which the area's heat would otherwise prevent.  

Despite this long history, it's only the last twenty years which have seen the production of quality wine; up until that point, wine was made in large quantities for local consumption. The radical shift in focus by confident, ambitious producers has seen Argentina become the seventh-largest exporter of wine in the world, bolstered mainly by Malbec. There is still a lot for the wine industry to discover about itself, however, such as expanding production to the cooler south to enable a greater variety of wine the country produces.

In contrast, Argentinian football has had a rich history right from the beginning. The country played its first international fixture in 1901, competed in the first South American Championship in 1916, and reached the first World Cup Final in 1930. One of the first great international stars was the late Alfredo di Stefano, subject of a political tug-of-war between Barcelona and Real Madrid in the 1950s, which led to the clubs agreeing to play him alternate seasons (it didn't happen - Real Madrid got him the first season, he initially struggled to fit in, and Barcelona gave up their rights to his contract).

In English eyes, at least, Argentinian football has always had an edge of venom and controversy: the "animals" of 1966, the alleged match-fixing under the generals in 1978, the "hand of God" of 1986, the first player to be sent off in a World Cup Final in 1990 (and, for good measure, they had a second player dismissed too). However, their two victories, in 1978, under the floating ticker tape, and 1986, with the genius of Maradona, are two of the most memorable in World Cup history.

Zaha Malbec 2011 (c. £25)

The Malbecs coming from Argentina are becoming increasingly serious. Initially powerful, heavy, high-alcohol wines, with instant appeal for the casual drinker, the wines now have a more balanced and intelligent use of oak, made from a greater understanding of the vineyards and their different expressions. The popularity of Malbec has enabled producers to gradually up the ante: such is the grape's appeal, consumers are willing to pay a bit more for the wines than they may for others.

Malbec originates from south-west France, where it was once grown in Bordeaux (and it's beginning to be taken notice of again in areas such as Bourg), as well as Cahors, the only appellation in France dedicated to the grape. The wines of Cahors, which used to be called "the black wine" by the English, can reach levels of greatness, but they don't have the soft, attractive fruitiness of the wines of Mendoza, qualities which come from the long growing season high in the Andes. In the Andes, the temperatures are hot during the day, speeding the ripening up, but cold at night, slowing the ripening down. It's these diurnal temperature ranges that allow Malbec to ripen in a way that gives the wine soft yet substantial black fruits.

This Malbec comes from the Altamira area of Mendoza, 1,000m above sea level. That altitude stretches out that long ripening season, giving the wine floral, perfumed aromatics, with an added grainy texture from the sand and limestone soils. The characteristic flavours of damsons and mulberries give this wine a powerful structure, alongside the spicy oakiness on the finish. A big, but balanced, wine.

wine result an intense competition between two very different wines which are proud to showcase the individual characteristics of the grape and area. The Riesling wins for its complex potential for ageing and as an expression of centuries of winemaking tradition, while the Malbec is more of an exciting sign of what Argentina is capable of in the future. Germany 3-2 Argentina

actual result an involving, but not always, exciting game of football that looked like it was petering out to penalties, before Mario Götze's stunning late goal snatched victory for a German team that had been building ten years for this moment. Germany 1-0 Argentina