A (not so) Short and (sometimes) Sweet Guide to Sugar Levels in German Wines
WE all know it, and begrudgingly, many Germans will admit it - German wine labelling stinks. The names are often ridiculously long, nearly impossible to remember, and even when you can read and remember them, the information that they actually contain are often no use at all to the consumer. So what is all of this Teutonic verbiage anyway? Well, while it is difficult to generalize about ALL of the names on German labels, most of them contain predominantly very specific geographical information, specifying the principal town in the growing zone, and very often the specific vineyard from which the grapes were harvested. Now all of this would be fine if on the back label these strings of 16 letter names were defined and contextualized, but alas, this sort of explanation is almost unheard of…
So back to German wine classifications…The first distinction is between Tafelwein and Qualitatswein. The former is simple “table wine”. Wines with this classification are basic “every day” wines with little pretention or aspiration. Tafelweins are most often made in large lots from large, often cooperative wineries. Qualitatswein is the heading under which all of the rest of German wines fall. As the name implies, these are wines of “quality” - wines that are deemed to be made to a higher standard.
The next and more specific divisions are most often known by their acronyms: QBA and QMP. QBA wines are considered to be the more “pedestrian” branch of the primary Qualitatswein classification, and unless one is really splitting hairs, Qualitatswein and QBA are synonymous. QMP (Qualitat mit Predikat) wines are qualitatsweins that the board that makes such distinctions has deemed to have special or even unique qualities.
The first level under the QMP umbrella is called Kabinett. As can be inferred from the name, these are the first level of quality that is deemed to be ageworthy (think storage cabinet). These wines tend to be fairly light. From here we move through, in order, Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, and finally Eiswein. But the REAL question here is “what does this ordering actually represent?” Now if you’re in the camp that thinks that these classifications stand for a ranking of how sweet the WINES are, you would be mostly WRONG, but despair not, better than 9 out of 10 folks think this too. This is probably the single biggest misconception about German wines. What these classifications REALLY represent are SUGAR LEVELS IN THE GRAPES MEASURED AT HARVEST. Lets take short look at the names themselves actually mean…
Spatlese means “late harvest” in German, and wines that carry this designation must be harvested at least one week later than the first pass within the greater harvest (the actual sugar levels required to meet each of these designations, by the way, vary from region to region and grape(s) to grape(s)). The next rung up is called Auslese which means “selected harvest”. This is the first classification that permits botrytis (”noble rot”) infection. Moving up the line, we reach beerenauslese. “Beerenauslese” means “selected berry harvest”. Beerenauslese wines are always picked after a bit of shrivelling and in almost all cases, the grapes have been infected by botrytis. These wines are often referred to as “BAs”. Even sweeter berries go into producing trockenbeerenauslese wines. Trockenbeerenauslese in German means “selected harvest of dried berries”. Only the best conditions in the best vineyards can produce grape with high enough must weights to be classified as “TBAs”. These wines are ALWAYS VERY expensive. The final classification within the QMP hierarchy is eiswein. As may be inferred from the name, eiswein means “ice wine”. These are the sweetest German wines of all (but also the most searingly acidic, so when all is said and done, they are balanced). Eiswein is made by literally allowing the grapes to freeze on the vine, with harvest beginning only as early as November, but depending on conditions, sometimes as late as January. Becasue of the freezing, eisweins are uneffected by botrytis. Also, unlike Canadian ice wines for example, German producers are forbidden to artificially freeze the grapes used to produce eiswein.
So like Bill Cosby said in his act many years ago, “I told you that story so I could tell you this one”…
So now we know what the German wine classification nomenclature actually refers to, but we still don’t know how to judge sweetness by just looking at the label. And I’m sure you’ll all be glad to hear that as difficult as the above system is, this one is that easy - it comes down to just one word: ALCOHOL…ready?…OK…here it goes…the LOWER the alcohol level, the SWEETER the wine. The HIGHER the alcohol, the DRYER the wine. That’s it. Period. Think of it this way: if the alcohol level is low (let’s say 7.5%), this means that much of the sugar (that with the addition of yeast, produces alcohol) has not been coverted into alcohol, and therefore remains dissolved in the wine. Wines with higher levels of alcohol are drier because the fermentation has been allowed to run on longer yielding a wine of say 11%-13% alcohol. So, there are scads of Spatlese and even Auslese level wines that are dry to BONE dry. Of late, to help folks who don’t know about the alcohol/sweetness correlation, many producers have taken to putting the word “trocken” or “halbtrocken” on their labels. Trocken means “dry”, and halbtrocken “half dry” or “off dry” in German, but the word trocken has the same SET of meanings in German that it has in English, so it can mean FIGURATIVELY dry (as in a dry tasting wine) or it can mean, as in the case of “TROCKENberrenauslese”, that the grapes have literally dried somewhat from hanging so long on the vine. Do not be confused, trockenbeerenauslese wines are ALWAYS sweet.
So guess no more about sugar levels in German wines, just follow the numbers…
TOM CIOCCO
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Hi Tom,
Nice article here. I am very fond of German wine. I only have to cross the border and I am in the Mosel, so … that’s heaven for me. German wine labels really need explanation, that is, to my opinion, not because they are difficult or confusing, but just because they tell you so much about the fermented juice in the bottle.
I think this system is in fact the only one that is “more reliable” when it comes to the quality you expect from that thing in the closed bottle. From the level of Qba (that’s Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete, they have to originate from the 13 classified regions in Germany: Ahr, Baden, Franken, Hessische Bergstraße, Mittelrhein, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Nahe, Pfalz, Rheingau, Rheinhessen, Saale-Unstrut, Sachsen, Württemberg) onwards rules are fairly strict: the ripeness of the grapes is in fact codified and that means a lot.
These rules were in fact a reaction of the German wine industry on the often heard contradictory clichés that German wines are just sour (German vinegar) or sweet (Liebfraumilch). And of course a way to distinguish good wines from those bulk wines that screamed unripeness. However, must weights were classified, but acid levels weren’t. Maybe an explanation for the still persisting idea that German wine labels are all about sugar levels?
And then of course there is the problem with the German reds (which are definitely underestimated btw).
Cheers!
Comment by TSchampaert — January 15, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
Best article so far. I have been getting into German wines ever since my Grandfather gave me two bottles of Eiswien.
I have a question. Both wines are from the late seventies and both say “Eiswein” on the label. One says it is a Auslese and the grape is a Veltliner. The other is a Beerenauslese and is a Muscat. Using your instructions above are these true Eisweins?
Very educational…thanks!
Comment by Brandon M — January 15, 2007 @ 2:02 pm
Brandon-
I am no expert on these matters, but if both wines are indeed labeled as “eiswein” then I’m going to “educatedly” guess that they are just that…as I say in the article above, ‘auslese’ literally means ‘late harvest’ and ‘beerenauslese’ ’selected late harvest’, so most technically, I guess that it could be said than any eiswein falls into either of two these categories…like how all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares, or something like that…BTW, the one labeled “Veltliner” is proabably Austrian since Gruner Veltliner is one of Austria’s signature varieties, and is almost unknown in Germany…when you open them, write up some notes, and send ‘em along!
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 15, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
I think both your wines are Austrian, as, indeed, Grüner Veltliner is a very uncommon grape in Germany and Muscat-wines are also not really easy to find. But, this is no indication on its own.
If I understand correctly, you have on the same label Auslese/Beerenauslese and Eiswein. If the bottles are indeed from the late seventies these are almost certainly not German wines, as the wine rules Tom wrote about were first applied in 1971. According to these rules Auslese/Beerenauslese/Eiswein are separate categories (’Stufen’). So, a German wine cannot be Beerenauslese and Eiswein at the same time (yet, the must weights for Eiswein and TBA are almost the same, only the production technique and the resulting acid levels are different).
In Austria however, from the 1960’s onwards a lot of producers adopted the German terminology of Auslese/Beerenauslese/Trockenbeerenauslese for the sake of prestige: they are supposed to tell you something on the quality and the rareness of the wines. These names (not yet linked with legal categories) were applied in the same manner on German bottles until they were codified in the new German wine laws of 1971.
In Austria these rules were not introduced until somewhere in the 1990’s, I believe. Anyway, they didn’t exist by the time your wines were labelled. So, the Austrians still were allowed to use both seperate categories alongside each other on one label. That’s why your wines are Auslese/Beerenauslese AND Eiswein. The names here merely add to the commercial prestige of the wine, but do not necessarily refer to the way in which they were picked and vinified. But of course, they can be true Eisweins. It just depends on how reliable the producer’s word was at that time. Just pop that cork and you’ll see …
Comment by TSchampaert — January 15, 2007 @ 5:06 pm
Thanks TSchampaert, I appreciate the time on this.
In fact upos further inspection of the label it says Osterreich Weinbaugebiet Burgenland “Product of Austria Shipped by Ferdinand Pieroth Burg Layen, West-Germany.
I never looked close enough and saw that they were not from West-Germany and in fact a Product of Austria.
Thanks for the heads up.
Am I to assume that Monchhofer Kirchenpfad are Austrian Town and AOC?
Comment by Brandon M — January 15, 2007 @ 10:05 pm
This is a very interesting bottle Brandon. It has some history about it.
Ferdinand Pieroth was and is still a very well known wine producer and (especially) exporter from Burg Layen a small town in the German Nahe-region. The company was founded in 1705. In the last century it started to export wines to other European countries, the Americas and Asia. It acquired also some estates outside the Nahe-region in the 1930’s, supposedly also in Austria (but I can’t find any ‘hard’ evidence on that).
Now, Mönchhof is a small village in the Neusiedlersee region from Austria. Some of the greatest Eisweins are made over there (Pöckl, Opitz). Kirchenpfad is probably a vineyard over there, but, as for the situation today, I think there is no coresponding plot of vines designated with that particular name anymore. It could even be that there never has been such a vineyard, but that this name was just a clever marketing trick of Pieroth, as it resembles a very highly esteemed vineyard in the German Rhine region: Rüdesheimer Kirchenpfad.
So, you can consider this as an Town-AOC descriptor but maybe the link with a material vineyard is unexisting.
Some good information about Austrian wines can be found [url=http://www.winesfromaustria.com/eindex.php]here[/url], about Pieroth [url=http://www.pieroth.de/]here[/url]
Comment by TSchampaert — January 16, 2007 @ 4:09 am
Awesome….Awesome….Awesome….
Thank you for the great info
Comment by Brandon M — January 16, 2007 @ 1:06 pm
Great article. I am a little confused by the following line: “Becasue of the freezing, eisweins are uneffected by botrytis.” Why is this? I don’t understand the relation between the two things.
Comment by TimF — January 16, 2007 @ 3:48 pm
Tim-
I honestly don’t know, but I would GUESS that the answer is twofold…that vineyards that are suitable for producing eisweins tend to be colder and DRYER (well ventilated and exposed to the sun)so the botrytis tends not to form there in the first place, and I would imagine that whatever noble rot DOES begin to form would be destroyed by the freeze, and then would be removed in a triage before crush…but I could be completely full of crap here…I’ll defer to TSchampaert if he’s still “here”…T, what say ye?
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 17, 2007 @ 10:19 am
Thanks for another excellent article Tom. I have to admit that I was one that always assumed that Kabinetts were always the dry Rieslings and the others were always sweeter. Now I’m going to have to find some Auslese and Spatlese that are dry. Very informative, thanks again.
Comment by AnthonyS — January 17, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
AnthonyS-
Thanks for reading! Glad you enjoyed the piece and were able to take something away from it…
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 17, 2007 @ 4:32 pm
A fellow named Jeff McDonald from Canada posted this comment under the wrong heading, so I’ve moved it here:
“Also, unlike Canadian ice wines for example, German producers are forbidden to artificially freeze the grapes used to produce eiswein.”
This implies that Canadian producers are allowed to artificially freeze grapes for Icewine. Absolutely not true. The Vintners Quality Alliance standard, in effect and enforced in Canada’s two biggest wine producing provinces (British Columbia and Ontario) clearly forbid artificial freezing of grapes.
Jeff-
You are correct, though I did find such a citation but for the life of me I cannot find it now…one of the sources that I was using was a bit older…might the requirement that all grapes destined for the production of ice wine being naturally frozen have been recently adopted?
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — January 18, 2007 @ 11:03 am
very nice, intresting…
Comment by diego de la p... — January 18, 2007 @ 3:01 pm
Tom C, this is great, great info….thanks so much to you and some of the other posters (Jeff and Toms Schampeart in particular) for the very informative and easy to understand info (well, as easy as German Wine labeling can be). One suggestion — each time you post a new article, I think it would be great if you would post a NEW TOPIC within “Vayniacs Valley” with a link. I, for one, know that this is here, but I forget about it sometime. The reason I popped over today is because “intherainyseason” (that’s his/her screenname) posted a comment with a link. Here’s a link to that post (it’s the 14 comment on page 1).
So back to my point, you should post a new TOPIC/THREAD whenever you’ve posted a NEW article here. I believe you will derive a significant increase in traffic.
If you want, I would be happy to post this for you, simply send me an email when you post a new article.
And back to the main point of this post….THANKS!!
Comment by SS Chris — February 13, 2007 @ 9:37 am
I negleted to post the link to the TOPIC/THREAD with the post from “intherainyseason” that directed me to your article
Here it is…and it’s actually the 13th post on page 1 (I had said 14th on previous post).
http://tv.winelibrary.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=41906#41906
Comment by SS Chris — February 13, 2007 @ 9:41 am