Oct 4, 2021
After 10.5 years of doing the podcast I realized that we have never done an overview of Germany! Details, yes, but never the whole deal. Well, now we have.
Photo credit: Pexels
We discuss an overview of the most important things to know about Germany so you can buy and try the wines more easily. We begin with an overview of the German wine industry, and a reassurance that most of the stuff for export is pretty darn good. Then we tackle the climate and land, both which are completely unlikely places for great viticulture, but for a few dedicated people and a few quirks in geography.
We talk about the major grapes (spoiler alert: Riesling is huge here) and then we discuss various wine styles before giving an overview of the very rich history here, which is meant to give you context for how long Germany has been in the winemaking game and how significant the country has been in wine.
The second half of the show is an overview of the major regions in Germany and then we wrap with a quick discussion of the classification system, which hopefully makes much more sense once you hear about the history, climate, and terroir of Germany.
I love German wine. I think you could too, if you don’t already. I hope that this show (and the Germany section in the WFNP book, which gives a lot of great detail) can convince you to put it in the rotation more often!
Here are the show notes:
- German wine regions are mainly in the southern and southwestern part of Germany, and are quite northerly, many at around 50-51˚N latitude
- There are 103,000ha/252,00 acres of vineyards
- 2/3 of the wine is white, with Germany’s wine reputation pinned to Riesling
- Most people who make wine in Germany are small producers by New World standards. 25,000 cases/300,000 bottles is considered a huge winery, whereas in the US that’s on the small side of medium!
Photo of Riesling:
Canva/Getty
Climate and land
- Germany is a cool climate country, grapes can only grow and ripen because of the Gulf stream from western Europe and the warmer air the comes in from Eastern Europe
- Rainfall in Germany’s wine regions occurs DURING the growing
season, not during harvest. There is significant disease pressure
on the vineyards but irrigation is not an issue and the long, dry
fall enables easier harvesting and allows for late harvest wines to
flourish
- The very steep slopes face south, southeast, or southwest. The slopes experience intense solar radiation, helping ripen the grapes
Photo (C)Wine For Normal People: Slate in the
Mosel
- Slate is a preferred soil in Germany because it retains heat and imparts spicy, minerally notes to the wine
Grapes of Germany
- Riesling is about 23% of production
- Müller-Thurgau is about 12%
- Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) is 11.5%
- Dornfelder (a red) is about 7.6%
- Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris) is 6%
- Weisburgunder (Pinot Blanc) is 5%
- Silvaner is 4.8%
- And many other grapes are grown in small percentages all over the country
Wine regions: We
review all 13 Anbaugebiete...
Map from the Wine For Normal
People Book
- Ahr is the northernmost region. It is
small and grows a majority of red wine, mainly spätburgunder
- Baden is Germany’s southernmost
region and accordingly it is the warmest, sunniest region. It is
close to France, and grows a lot of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and
Pinot Blanc as a result
- Franken is known for its flagon – a
flat, round-shaped bottle called a bocksbeutel. The regions
specializes in earthy, white Silvaner from the limestone shores of
the Main River
- Hessische Bergstrasse is a teeny
region with Riesling as the lead. You don’t see these wines outside
of Germany
- Mittelrhein is in the middle of the
Rhine (fitting name, huh!?). It is dominated by Riesling, which
grows on steep slate slopes
- Mosel is
the most famed region in Germany and makes what many consider to be
the best Riesling in the world. The first winegrowing in Germany
was in Mosel and it contains the steepest vineyard: at 65˚ grade,
Bremmer Calmont has this distinction. Slate soils are dominant and
the wines are known for low alcohol levels, high acidity, pure
fruit and floral (jasmine, gardenia) notes, along with strong
minerality. They are generally off-dry to sweet, to offset the very
powerful acidity the terroir imparts to Riesling.
Photo (C)Wine For Normal
People - Nahe is located around the river
Nahe, the volcanic soils create wines with fuller, richer textures
than in other parts of Germany. It is a medium-sized area and not
all vineyards or wineries are created equal – there are excellent
producers and less good ones too!
- Pfalz is the second largest area
after Rheinhessen. It is consumed heavily in the domestic market
and can make rich, fuller stules of dry Riesling because the
climate is slightly warmer. Red wines are growing here as well,
given the warm conditions and the ability to fully ripen red
grapes.
- Rheingau is
the home of Riesling, the creator of Spätlese and Auslese, and
highest percentage of Riesling (nearly 80%) and the home of
Geisenheim University, one of the best viticulture and oenology
schools in the world. The wines range in sweetness and in stule but
they are subtler than Mosel wines and tend to develop intricate
flavors of petrol, flowers, chamomile tea, and herbs with a few
years in the bottle.
Photo (C) Wine For Normal
People
- Rheinhessen is the largest production
area in Germany. It has the dubious distinction of being nicknamed
“Liebfraumilch land” from its mass production of the sweet plonk
that kind of tanked Germany’s reputation. Rheinhessen has tried to
shirk that image and focus on quality wine made from Riesling. The
areas of Nackenheim, Nierstein, and Oppenheim can produce excellent
quality wine.
- Wurttemberg specializes in red wines
that aren’t grown in other parts of Germany – Trollinger, Lemberger
(Blaufränkisch), and Schwarzriesling (Pinot Meunier) are all big
here.
- Saale-Unstrut and Sachsen are in the former East Germnay. Both specialize in dry wine and are at 51˚N latitude. The wines are improving with the help of climate changes and better viticultural practices.
Finally we tackle the levels of German Classification:
- Deutscher Tafelwein: German Table Wine, consumed domestically
- Deutscher Landwein: German Country wine like Vins d’Pays in France or IGP in Italy, consumed domestically
- QbA (actually stands for Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete): Wines from a defined region. It can be blended from a few regions but generally it’s from one of the Anbaugebiete, so you’ll see Mosel, Pfalz, Rheingau, etc on the bottle
- Prädikatswein is made from grapes with higher
ripeness levels. The levels are:
- Kabinett: Ripe grapes. Can be dry or sweet
- Spätelese: Late Harvest wines. Can be dry or sweet
- Auslese: Select Harvest wines. Can be dry or sweet, very flavorful wines
- Beerenauslese: Berries of the Select Harvest. Always sweet, generally have experienced the effects of botrytis so the wines are honeyed, waxy, and apricot like. Berries are selected off the vines for the best of the bunch
- Trockenbeerenauslese: Dried Berries of Select Harvest. Always sweet, very rare. Grapes are very ripe must have been affected by botrytis. The grapes are raisined with very high concentration of sugar. Very expensive and rare wines
- Eiswein: Grapes are harvested after the first frost. The water in the grapes freezes, the winemakers squeeze out the frozen water and then press the sugar that remains. These wines should not be affected by botrytis
We wrap up with other terms that are good to know:
- Trocken means the wine is dry
- Halbtrocken wines are off-dry and can seem very sweet
- Feinherb wines are sweeter or as sweet as halbtrocken wines
- The VDP: A private
marketing organization of about 200 producers around Germany, with
its own standards of quality that it expects its members to live up
to. Not all great producers are VDP members but it is a safe bet if
you know nothing about the wine
VDP
Logo
- Weingut is a winegrowing and wine-producing estate
- Gutsabfüllung refers to a grower/producer wine that is estate bottled
Much of the data for the podcast was sourced from the Wines of Germany
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