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Gabriel René

The Swiss wine journalist and wine critic René Gabriel was born in 1957 in the canton of Nidwalden. After school, he completed an apprenticeship as a chef at the Hotel Gütsch in Bern. In addition to his main job as a chef, he also toured the country for a time with his music band. In 1986, he took over the Hotel Kreuz in Sempach in the canton of Lucerne and presented the most famous Swiss wine list there with more than 1,000 entries. There, he came to the attention of the founder of the Swiss Mövenpick Group, Ueli Prager, who hired him as head of purchasing in 1990. At the same time, he was working for the ADV (Acádemie du Vin), organising professional seminars and trips for private wine lovers.

Gabriel René - Porträt und Weinwisser Cover

In 1992, René Gabriel founded the successful newsletter WeinWisser. In 2006, he converted his very successful activity at Mövenpick into a consulting activity. In the same year he founded the event and travel company "Weingabriel GmbH" and has since also been a partner of the auction house "Weinbörse". Gabriel is often hired as a wine event host and is widely known and loved through his many TV appearances and radio interviews for his ability to convey his vast knowledge in an informative and entertaining way. Today he is one of the most influential wine critics in the German-speaking world. In 1997, Gabriel was awarded the Steinfeder Prize for Wine Journalism.

Gabriel is particularly regarded as a Bordeaux specialist and has tasted more than 30,000 Bordeaux wines in 20 years. He declared the famous Bordeaux classification of 1855 obsolete and developed his own ranking. Gabriel uses the 20-point system for his wine ratings. For the Château d'Yquem 1937 he even awarded 21 points and called it "Überwein". Every year, up to 1,000 different Bordeaux from the latest vintage are tasted as barrel samples. After two years, they are tasted again from the bottle and again in the following years. In doing so, he not only assesses the current vintage, but also looks at the style and quality development of the individual châteaux over the course of the last decades, the maturation potential of their wines and their terroir over the centuries.

From these countless wine descriptions, five editions of his standard work "Bordeaux Total" have emerged to date. In the latest edition, published in 2004, wines from the period 1994 to 2003 are assessed on more than 700 pages. The book lists over 1,000 châteaux and cellars with more than 20,000 wines from the Bordelais. In about 10,000 tasting notes, 400 châteaux are evaluated. Only those that have consistently produced top quality wines over the last ten years were included in the five-stage rating à la the Bordeaux classification. This was achieved by 138 wineries, including 17 Premiers, 18 Deuxièmes, 21 Troisièmes, 35 Quatrièmes and 47 Cinquièmes Crus. There is also a pocket edition of "Bordeaux Total", which contains the most important data on just under 300 pages. See also under wine rating and wine talk, and wine with food.

Pictures: Vinum - Magazine for Wine Culture

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