German Riesling, the Red-headed Stepchild of American Wine Culture

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German Riesling, the Red-headed Stepchild of American Wine Culture

Posted by Cooley on June 5, 2008 at 9:44am in Wine Regions

This is for all you haters out there. You hate German Rieslings and you don't even know them. You go on and on about your Bordeauxs and Burgundies, your Brunellos and Riojas. And if you're going to even consider a white, it's a Chardonney or Sauvingnon blanc. German Rieslings truly are the filthy bastard child you keep locked under your stairs and refuse to associate yourself with.

Actually, that didn't make as much sense as I wanted it to and the red-head metaphore is starting to hit home, and it hurts. Let's call Riesling the immigrant neighbor that lives down the hall that you don't understand (I think this makes more sense anyway - cause you don't really hate rieslings, right? If you do, I call you a racist! No, you just don't understand them. They don't speak your language. Ok, you're not a racist).

German labels are difficult to understand and intimidating. I'm mean they're written in German - there's not much out there there that's more difficult to understand and intimidating - the label is practically screaming violent orders at you. So here's what I'm going to do...

I'm going to piece by piece translate the German wine label into peaceful English words over the next few weeks that will make these beautiful wines (some of the most complex whites in my opinion) approachable for all you non-Germans.

Today's lesson: Trocken - This word found on a German label most often means that the wine is dry, or fermented to the point of very little sugar. Halb-trocken mean off-dry or semi-sweet. The only exception here is if you see the word "trockenbeerenauslese", which translates to selected harvest of dried berries. This means the grapes have been affected by the noble rot and therefore are practically raisins creating extremely high sugar concentrations in the must and resulting wine.

Recap: Trocken = dry
Halb-trocken = semi-sweet
Trockenbeerenauslese = extremely sweet dessert wine

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cooley on June 11, 2008 at 11:33pm: Round 2

I'll keep this quick and easy. The level of sugar in the must (juice before it becomes wine) of quality German wines is often characeterized by the following words:

kabinett (least sugar)
spatlese
auslese
beerenauslese
Eiswein
trockenbeerenauslese (most sugar)

One caveat - the amount of sugar in the must is not always directly related to the amount of sugar in the final wine (ie. a kabinett is not always drier than a spatlese). Look for the words "trocken" or "halbtrocken" on the lower sugar wines to guide you. Anything auslese or above will always have some residual sugar with the last 3 on the list being desert wines in every situation I've seen.

If you don't see any of the above word on the label, you can assume the must had even less sugar than a kabinett (high sugar in your must is something German vineyards take pride in). Qualitatswein (QbA) is a slightly lower quality designation than the above classifications (less sugar in must) but can still be a delicious wine.

Now go enjoy some of that sweet nectar!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gabe Holmes on June 12, 2008 at 10:21am: It is all about the Spatlese. (semi sweet, no?) Full bodied white's never tasted so good.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gabe Holmes on June 23, 2008 at 6:04pm: When should we throw an epic German wine tasting party?

Maybe just split another Trockenbeerenauslese?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Cooley on June 23, 2008 at 7:50pm: As soon as possible!

Maybe a comparison of Trockenbeerenauslese to Eiswein would be fun. Any way we go about it, it will certainly be epic.; ▶ Reply to This