Recently updated on February 21st, 2020 at 12:12 pm
Despite a once chequered reputation for being too sweet and of questionable quality, German wine is in the midst of a renaissance. With the Liebfraumilch connotations firmly out of favour, there’s much to celebrate in the modern German wine scene. If you’re keen to learn your Spätburgunder from your Spätlese, our essential guide to German wine will have you raising a glass faster than you can say, “prost!”
While there are 13 wine producing regions in Germany, most German wine is produced in the west of the country along the steep, sloping banks of the river Rhine. This area is home to quaint castles, rolling hills and ancient winemaking villages. The region’s winemaking heritage dates to Roman times – even Emperor Charlemagne (Charles the Great) allegedly planted vines here.
Know Your Grapes
With Riesling being the most prominent grape grown, most of the country’s output is white, ranging from crisp and dry to sweet and well rounded. Bright, fruity and easy to drink, Riesling has shades of peach and apricot with a perfumed, floral nose, sometimes developing petrol notes with age. It’s rarely aged in oak barrels to preserve the delicate aromatic aromas and let the freshness of the grape do the talking. Other German whites include Müller-Thurgau (bold, intense and flowery) and Gewürztraminer (aromatic and floral notes of lychee and roses).
It’s only been in the last decade that the reputation of German red wine has really taken hold, and thus, Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) now occupies a third of Germany’s vineyards. In fact, Spätburgunder is so popular that Germany is now the world’s third largest producer of the grape. For a denser more full-bodied red wine, try Dornfelder or Portugieser.
Love Labels
When you’re perusing a menu in a Munich wine bar or the shelves of your local off licence, there are a number of handy rating systems to help demystify German wine.
To easily get an overall feel for the quality of the wine, look for these labels:
Qualitätswein/QbA – An all-round ‘quality wine’ that will come from one of the designated 13 wine regions.
Qualitätswein mit Prädikat/QmP – Prädikat wines are “predicated” on a certain level of natural ripeness and will be made from superior grapes.
If you’re worried about ending up with a cloyingly-sweet wine, the Oechsle Scale measures the tartness of your grape.
Kabinett – This is the lightest and most delicate style, usually dry or off-dry. It’s made from ripe grapes picked early in the harvest which can also mean a low alcohol quotient.
Spätlese– German for ‘late harvest’, this will be a full-bodied wine that can be dry as well as sweet.
Auslese – Means ‘selected from the harvest’ – a quality wine that can range from dry to sweet.
Beerenauslese/BA – The Beeren prefix means berries so this will be a sweet, dessert wine. This usually indicates grapes affected by noble rot. This is a condition that affects grapes (botrytis cinerea), that penetrates them causing to become sweeter.
Eiswein – ‘Ice wine’ is made from overripe grapes that have frozen on the vine. A sweet dessert wine.
Trockenbeerenauslese/TBA – The country’s rarest and most exclusive dessert wine, made from shrivelled raisined grapes. Super sweet and often botrytised.
Just Desserts?
A handy way to check for sweetness, or to see whether you’ve picked out a dessert wine is to look for the alcohol percentage. Sweet dessert wines are often lower in alcohol as not all the sugar has been converted to alcohol through fermentation. Anything below 10% will be on the sweeter side.
If you see Trocken on the label it means dry and Halbtrocken means semi-dry.
Großes Gewäch is a sign of not only dryness but also superior quality. It means the grapes have come from a vineyard of excellent quality.
Where better to sample German wine than in the country itself? Click here to learn more about our trips to Germany.
Image Credits: Rhine River © iStock/AM-C. Wine taster © iStock/momcllog. Toast © iStock/gilaxia. Wine harvesting © iStock/tomazl.