Germany is the fourth largest wine producer in Europe. Far behind Italy, France and Spain, which rank 1 through 3 respectively, Germany does not have the same international reputation of these other wine power houses, but that doesn’t mean that Germans aren’t producing some excellent wines in their own right. Domestically produced bottles make up about half of the German wine market.
Known for their stunningly crisp and refreshing Rieslings, Germany has a distinct and unique wine culture amongst its European neighbors who are known more for their bold red varieties than their sweet whites. While the Rieslings you might be familiar with from the United States or that you might find in other countries, imported from Germany, are often overly sweet and tart, it should be noted that Germans hoard their good bottles of wine and really only export the blindingly sweet crap that no one else in Germany wants to drink. Germans make wine for themselves and most of the top wineries do not produce their wines with the purpose of exporting them around the world to critical acclaim.
When drinking German wines, stick with their white wines. The reds in Germany are, for lack of a better term, pure garbage compared to the incredible bottles you’ll find in Italy, France and Spain. Don’t even bother drinking German reds which tend be flat, watery, overly sweet and lacking the tannin complexity that you’ve come to expect from other European red wine producers. However, a dry German Riesling can be a magical, refreshing wine, particularly on a warm summer day.
The true magic of German wines, however, is how versatile their whites are with food pairings. They provide surprisingly interesting and complex pairings with even the most challenging foods. A very dry German Riesling is one of the few great pairings with notoriously difficult vegetables, like artichoke, and one of the few wines out there than can stand up to Thai, Vietnamese or Szechuan dishes. A dry or half-dry Riesling pairs perfectly with these spicy, aromatic dishes. It will refresh and cool your palette, while complementing the spices and aromas bringing out all of the meal’s hidden depths.
German Wine Classification
German wine is classified in much the same way that it is in other European countries where there is an ever increasingly stringent set of rules based on location and quality that allows a wine to be classified with a certain distinct certification. The classification system goes as such:
1) Deutscher Wein: This is the lowest classification on the spectrum and denoted table wine that comes from anywhere within the country of Germany. This is typically a blended wine of unspecified origin.
2) Landwein: Landwein is German table wine in which all of the grapes have come from a specific designated, but broad region within Germany. This is similar to the Vin de Pays classification in France or the Indication Geografica Tipica in Italy.
3) Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete: This designation is awarded to wines where the groups are all sourced from the same designated wine region and are considered to be of a higher quality than most. Qualitätswein must come from 13 designated wine regions and is required to meet certain weight requirements based on the region. Most German wines fall under this category and thus it is not necessarily a great designator of quality.
4) Prädikatswein: This is the highest level of wine classification. It requires strict adherence to quality standards of grapes and all the grapes must be from a very specific region which is listed on the bottle. Also included on the bottle must be the wine’s Prädikat, which is a note that tells you about the ripeness of the grapes before they were made into wine. As grapes get more and more ripe they progressively accumulate more and more sugar which produces sweeter and often times more intensely flavored wines. The more ripe the grape, the more sugar in the grape, the more “residual sugar” is left over after fermentation and thus the sweeter the wine.
Within the Prädikat spectrum the following distinctions are made:
Kabinett: This is the least ripe grapes on the Prädikat spectrum. Wines in this category are typically light and fresh.
Spätlese: These wines were made from grapes that were left to ripen on the vine a bit more than their Cabinet counterparts, and the resultant wine is usually more powerful, rich and a bit sweeter than Kabinett wines.
Auslese: Auslese wines are even more sugary and bold. Many describe them as tasting of honey as they are made from even riper grapes than Spätlese. These wines are known to age fantastically well and make excellent pairings with cheese platters.
Beerenauslese: These are seriously sweet dessert wines, made from late-harvest grapes that have begun to be effected by botrytis or ‘noble rot’—the same fungus that makes the renowned wines of Sauternes.
Trockenbeerenauslese: The prefix ‘trocken’ here does not mean ‘dry wine’ as it typically does in Germany. It instead refers to the dried grape berries used to make the wine. The grapes are dried, further concentrating their sugars and producing a fantastically sweet dessert wine that often has a syrup quality to it.
Eiswein: Grapes for Eiswein are picked and pressed in the winter when they are frozen. The freezing of the grapes further concentrates the sugars in the grape juice by removing water. These wines are the sweetest and most expensive of the bunch.
Some Other Helpful Tips When Buying a Bottle of German Wine
– If you see the word “Trocken” on the label (unless it is as a prefix in the word Trockenbeerenauslese) this denotes that the wine is “dry” and contains a low amount of residual sugars and thus lacks sweetness. This is true even if the wine is a Spätlese. Spätleses, being made from riper grapes than Kabinett wines, are typically sweeter wines, but the Prädikat system tells you only of the grapes ripeness, not necessarily the sweetness of the final product. If you see a Trocken Spätlese this is a dry wine and should not be expected to be sweet.
– Halbtrocken means “half dry” and denotes off-dry, half sweet wine. These wines are often perfect compliments to spicy Thai or Indian meals.
– If you see the word ‘Selectionon’ on the bottle, that wine will be dry and sourced from a single vineyard. If you see the word ‘Classic’ on the wine label it will be an off-dry wine like Halbtrocken.
– Wine labeled with ‘GG’ will also be dry. GG is short for Grosses Gewächs which translates to “Great Growth” in English. This means that the grapes are from an exceptional and renowned vineyard and have been used to make stellar dry wines. This is similar to the ‘Grand Cru’ vineyards that you’ll find in Burgundy, France. These will typically be more expensive bottles that are known for their bold, complex flavor profiles.
– If you come across a German bottle of wine with a picture of an eagle with a cluster of grapes, this indicates membership in the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (Association of German Prädikat Wineries)—abbreviated as VDP. This is simply an organization of over 200 wineries that adhere to strictly enforced measures of quality in their wine production. There are many fantastic wineries that are not a part of the VDP, but you can be assured if you see a bottle from a VDP approved producer that the wine will be of exceptional quality.
– Single vineyard wines are denoted on German labels with the name of the town with an “-er” added to the end of the word followed by the name of the vineyard.
German Grapes (White)
Riesling
A fifth of all the grapes planted in Germany are riesling, so it is impossible to discuss German wines without talking extensively about riesling. And really it is impossible to separate German wines from the riesling grape. Known for their bright pop and refreshing acidity along with mouth watering freshness, rieslings can taste like peach or apricot, with lightning bolts of lemon and lime tartness. They are also incredibly aromatic with notes of jasmine and honeysuckle as well as incorporating a delightful minerality from the red and blue slate in which their roots grow.
German rieslings are rarely aged in oak, with most winemakers opting for the crisp, clean taste of stainless steel which emphasizes the refreshing quality of German rieslings. Not all German rieslings are sweet, but a little more residual sugar than you might typically go for is useful in cutting through the often biting acidity and tartness of some of these wines. A little bit of extra sugar provides an excellent balance to most of these wines.
Müller-Thurgau
Grapes have a hard time growing successfully in Germany’s harsh climate and as such scientists have been at work for decades crossing different varieties of grapes in search for the perfect combination of flavor profile and resiliency in the face of imperfect growing climates. Müller-Thurgau is the most well known fruit of this labor and is the second most planted grape after riesling. It is a cross of Riesling and Madeleine Royale grapes. These wines tend to be light, aromatic and floral.
Silvaner
Known for the full bodied, dry white wines it produces Silvaner is a great alternative to riesling as it provides a softer, less biting and acidic wine with more intense and complex minerality.
Grauburgunder
Grauburgunder is the German word for Pinot Grigio. It has a pink skin and white juice.
Weißburgunder
Weißburgunder is German for Pinot Blanc. It ripens a little earlier than riesling and is used in climates that are slightly too hot for riesling.
Gewürstraminer
A pink-skinned grape.
German Grapes (Red)
Spätburgunder
German for Pinot Noir, Spätburgunder is the third most planted grape in Germany. German Pinot Noir tends to be lighter than reds from warmer climates and in my opinion are rather watery and lacking in complexity. I still have not found a Spätburgunder that I would choose over almost any red from France, Italy or Spain.
Dornfelder
Developed in Württemberf in 1955, Dornfelder grapes were invented to give a darker color to the light red wines of Germany. Dornfelders provide a nice spice and boldness to otherwise bland German reds.
German Wine Regions You Should Know
While Germany has 13 different designated wine regions, most of which are clustered in the south western region of the country, there are really only a handful that you should take the time to familiarize yourself with. Grapes have a tough time growing and properly ripening in the cool climate of Germany, but that hasn’t stopped people from perfecting the craft here since Roman times. While there are not many great growing regions in Germany, the few that are known for their wines have very particular micro-climates that make them excellent for the types of wines they produce. Some of the best of these regions are along the twisting Mosel and Rhine rivers that provide steep hills over ideal slate rock that reflects the sunlight and heat perfectly into the vines during the day and then allows cool air to come in off the rivers and cool the grapes in the evening.
Mosel
The Mosel region is famous for their wines and for good reason as they produce the best wine in all of Germany. As mentioned above, the slate soil absorbs and reflects the sun’s rays providing the perfect amount of warmth for the mainly riesling grapes that grow in this region. The river zigs and zags through steep hills on either sides of its banks providing ample opportunity for winemakers to harness different, unique exposures to the sun. Mosel rieslings are known for their sharp acidic bite, their flavors of peach and citrus as well as a distinct slate minerality.
Rheingau
While Mosel rieslings tend to be delicate and refined, Rheingau rieslings are known to be more powerful, concentrated and bold. Most of the vineyards in this region are clustered on the northern bank of the Rhine between the towns of Assmannshausen and Wiesbaden. The village of Assmansshausen has a reputation for fantastic Pinot Noir. As far as German reds go, if you are determined to try some, Assmannshausen is the place to do it. The Spätburgunder made by August Kesseler comes highly recommended.
Rheinhessen
Located on the west bank of the Rhine river, this is Germany’s largest wine region and home to one third of the country’s Riesling production. Although somewhat less renowned for their quality of rieslings than the more famous Mosel region, you can still find quite a few fantastic riesling bottles in this area.
Pfalz
Pflaz, which is located just north of the French wine region of Alsace, grows more international varieties of wine such as Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc than any other wine region in Germany. Here you’ll find dry and sparkling wines that are more typical of the French style of wine production as this area has a climate, warm and sunny, that more closely resembles its French neighbor. This extra sunshine leads to more full-bodied Rieslings compared to those from the Mosel. This region also specializes in some of the more mineral forward German varietals, like Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) and Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris). Like all of Germany and the nearby Alsace region in France, it is best to stick with white wines from this region.