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How to Read a German Wine Label 1. The Vintage. Vintages since 1988 have been very good,
with 1990, 1994, and 2001 standing alone at the top. Other very
good vintages include 1989, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1999, and 2001. In
this example the wine is from the 1993 vintage. 2. The Winery / Estate. Some of the best estates in
Germany today are Joh. Jos. Prüm, Fritz Haag, Forstmeister Geltz
Zilliken, von Hövel, Reinhold Haart, and Dr. F. Weins-Prüm just
to name a few. However there are also the new stars such as the
Robert Weil, Franz Künstler, and Gunderloch Estates. These three
estates have offered up stiff competition for the greatest names
in German wine making for several years now. 3. The Varietal. There are many different varietals (grapes)
grown in Germany, the most popular are Riesling, Müller-Thurgau,
and Silvaner. This wine is made from the Riesling grape. 4. The Ripeness Level of the grapes used: This is where
German wine can get really confusing. But that's OK, and hopefully
this will clear things up. Here in America there are two (2) different
German wine categories 1) QbA - Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete - The first category of German wine is QbA. In the American market we have branded our QbA's as "Estate Rieslings". You might ask why we use the name "Estate Riesling" instead of QbA, it's because we quickly realized that nobody here in America knows what a QbA is. We coined the word "Estate Riesling" because QbA's express the general style of the estate (that's why we use word "Estate") and we use the word Riesling because it's the varietal (grape) used to make the wine. In other words, an Estate Riesling will give you a basic idea of what wines from the particular estate taste like. Estate Rieslings (QbA's) usually retail for $9 - $12 per bottle and are not only some of the best values in German wine today, but we dare say some of the best values in the wine world today. Estate Rieslings are usually blended by the estate in one of two ways. 1) The first, and most frequently used by our estates, is to blend grapes from the same vineyard which have different ripeness. This is done in order to achieve the correct weight (body) and level of acidity, what we like to call "balance." 2) The second option the estate has to achieve the correct balance in a Estate Riesling (QbA) is to blend grapes from two or more vineyards. This is done because when the grapes are blended together they will make a higher quality wine than if they were bottled separately. 2) QmP - Qualitätswein mit Pradikät - This is where the highest quality wines from Germany can be found, the QmP category. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT ---> Note we didn't say ALL QmP wines are high quality, sadly many of them are of poor to average quality. See point #7 for the VDP logo, this is as close as you'll come to finding a "quality assurance" logo in the German wine business. QmP wines are completely natural and are bottled according to the level of sugar in the grape at harvest (when it was picked). The winemaker must only use what nature provides them in the grape, nothing else. What ends up in the bottle all revolves around a very tedious harvest system. The estate will go out into the vineyards approximately four to six times, over a period of about eight weeks selecting their grapes. These four to six selections result in batches of grapes all having varying levels of ripeness. It is these different ripeness levels which determine how the QmP wines will be bottled / labeled. A quick note on ripeness, first ripeness in this instance is not a qualitative assessment. It is an assessment regarding the weight of the wine. Essentially what the QmP system is doing is dividing German wines into varying weight categories. In other words, it gives you a series of light, medium, and heavier weight / body wines to enjoy. If you don't understand the word weight or body, one easy to understand analogy is milk. Drink a glass of nonfat milk, drink lowfat, then drink some cream and you'll hopefully note that there's a decidedly different level of weight in the mouth between each of them, or what we call body. However, body is just one of many dimensions that define a wine, the degree to which a wine is light bodied or heavy bodied doesn't make the wine better or worse. We've had plenty of mind blowing light bodied Mosel Kabinetts, as well many heavy bodied TBAs from the Rheingau and Pfalz. They're all great wines, it's just a question of which style you prefer. The real question is how do you tell these weight / body groupings apart from one another ?? Believe it or not every bottle of German QmP wine has this weight / body noted on the label. The weight / body is categorized by name, and they are: Kabinett - the first level of ripeness, these grapes produce the lightest of the QmP wines. Spätlese - later harvest, medium level of ripeness, makes a medium weight wine. Auslese - specially selected, usually later harvest, makes medium / heavy weight wines. Beerenauslese - usually referred to as "BA" it's a wine selected by individual berries, makes a heavy bodied wine. Trockenbeerenauslese - usually referred to as "TBA" made from individually selected dried berries, makes a very heavy bodied wine. Eiswein - special term given to wines whose bunches were harvested while frozen, it must by law have the body of at least a "BA." Eiswein can be more concentrated than a TBA. If you look on any bottle of German QmP wine you will see one of these harvest levels noted. Remember that they only indicate the approximate "body" of the wine, they have nothing to do with quality, or the degree of dryness. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that all Kabinett, Spätlese, or Auslese wines are "sweet", they can be also very dry. The basic premise behind the German QbA and QmP system is to indicate that greater care went into the selecting and making of a QmP wine than into a QbA wine. So it is indeed ironic that neither the QbA or QmP system do anything to focus on the quality of the wine. Sadly almost anyone in Germany with access to a wine press can make a QmP wine, so how do you determine the quality of the German wine you are buying ? The most important variables when assessing quality is - 1) the estate, 2) the vineyard, 3) the vintage, and 4) the VDP logo (see #7 on this page). The best way to remember the QbA and QmP categories is that they are more or less helpful indicators of the weight and body of a wine you're buying, nothing else. 5. The Vineyard. This notes the vineyard in which the grapes used to make the wine were grown. This label happens to indicate the greatest vineyard in the village of Piesport, the Goldtröpfchen. 6. The Growing Region or appellation. There are many growing regions, however the most popular in America are probably the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Rheingau, Pfalz, Rheinhessen, Nahe, and Franconia.
8. The government approval number or the AP #. Using the above label as an example, the AP number contains the following information: 2 596 429 6 94 - The first digit, 2, represents the village in which the wine was tasted. 2 in this case designates the village of Bernkastel. The following three digits, 596, represent the village where the estate is located, in this case 596 designates the village of Piesport. The third set of digits, 429, represent the grower identification number, Haart's id number is 429 (this number is directly linked to the village number). The second to last digit, 6, is simply a number representing the order in which the estate presented its wine to the tasting panel. The last group of digits, 94, represent what year the wine was presented for approval, in this case 1994. Rudi Wiest Selections Copyright © 1993 - 2005 |
7.
VDP Logo. Remember when we talked about the QbA and QmP categories
in #4, the problem was that you had no way to recognize quality.
Well this is as close as we can get to a "quality assurance"
logo. This eagle represents membership in the V.D.P., an elite
group of wine making estates in Germany. Of the 35,000 + labels
produced in Germany only about 180 are V.D.P. members. This
is an excellent way to begin you search for better German wine making
estates, the eagle is usually found on the capsule and the label.