Germany: All Riesling, All the Time

Today: a brilliant explanation of how to decipher a German wine label.

Well, not surprisingly, the Germans have a system. {"There will be order. It will be maintained."] The predominant wine is Riesling -- so much so, says Steve, that it's the number one wine, and numbers two through five, as well. That's all they're doing, really, and they're doing it in an area not much bigger than the Napa Valley: the five districts (bordering French Alsace) of Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Nahe, Rheingau, Rheinhessen, and Rheinpfalz. Wines are quality-rated, the best wines falling in the Qualitatswein Bestimmter Anbaugebiete (QbA) or Qualitatswein mit Pradikat (QmP) levels (clearly stated on the label). The QmP wines are further distinguished by a designation which indicates the relative sweetness and quality: starting with Kabinett and progressing through Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, and Eiswein.

Germany is the coldest place on the planet with a wine tradition. "If wines are stressed anywhere, they're stressed in Germany," Steve says, with short growing seasons and soil that in some cases is more shale than dirt. While Germans have been making well-crafted wines for hundreds of years, wines that at the turn of the 19th century were considered the best in the world, the desire for German products of all kinds dropped precipitously during the 20th century, for obvious reasons. Only in the last ten or 15 years have German wines experienced a resurgence of popularity in the US and elsewhere.

They're great "fusion" wines, actually. They carry residual sugar in increasing degrees, but well-balanced rieslings have enough acidity to keep them from being cloying. The Kabinett, Spatlese, and Auslese designations are wines with sugar levels that complement entrées, especially food that has sweetness (like fruit salsa) or perceived sweetness (like Dungeness crab).

We talked about food a lot today, though we didn't eat any. But these are all dishes that work well with riesling, for future reference: chicken salad with grapes. crab cakes. pork with almond cream sauce. coquilles saint jacques. chicken curry. lion's head meatballs. And when you get to the sweeter, heavier wines at the top of the sugar scale, that's when you just sip.