Characteristics of Germany's wine regions

Whether you are travelling on foot, by bike, in the car or on a boat, you will be stunned by the sheer variety of Germany's 13 wine-growing regions where romantic hills are carpeted with vineyards and vines cling to the sheer slopes. Producing top German wines is very labour intensive, with most of the pruning, leaf pulling and grape picking done by hand. Unlike in the new world, the small size of the vineyards in Germany makes industrial wine production impossible. Germany's reputation for wine is even more remarkable when you take into account that its 100,000 hectares or so under vine represents just 1.3 per cent of the world's grape-growing land, and that the 10 million or so hectolitres of wine it products a year equate to about 3.3 per cent of global wine production.

Six of Germany's wine regions, the Ahr, Middle Rhine, Moselle, Nahe, Palatinate and Rheinhessen regions, are in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, while the others are to be found in Baden, Württemberg, the Rheingau, the Hessian Bergstrasse region, Franconia, Saxony and the Saale Unstrut area.

Germany's most important viticultural centres are along the Rhine, Moselle and Main rivers and around Lake Constance. The landscape in these areas has been shaped by wine-growing since Roman times, resulting in glorious vistas that can be enjoyed by all. The main grape variety grown here is riesling, a popular grape in demand around the world and the main variety grown in the country. Sixty per cent of world's riesling grapes are grown in Germany, where the typical climate experienced in its wine regions is particularly beneficial because cool autumn nights encourage the berries to ripen slowly, enabling the riesling to develop the characteristic, delicately nuanced flavour that is unique to German wines.

 

After riesling, the other important white varieties are silvaner, rivaner, pinot gris and pinot blanc.
The top black grape is pinot noir, which accounts for more than a third of German wine production. Measured by area, Germany is the world's third biggest pinot noir producing country. Wine growers in Rhineland-Palatinate mainly go for dornfelder and portugieser grapes, while trollinger, pinot meunier and lemberger are the main varieties grown in Württemberg.

Discover these and the many other specialities of Germany's wine regions, which are as diverse as their culture, people and wines.