Northampton Wines

German wines are labeled under the world’s most comprehensive and understandable system. German wine labels do an excellent job of indicating relative quality, style, and especially place of origin of all the country’s finest products.

A wine label may reveal many things, but the most important for putting all facts in perspective is the source of the fruit. There are 13 premium wine regions in Germany and virtually all wines of note will name one. The best known in the U.S. are the Rheingau, the Rheinhessen, and the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer. Remember however, there are ten other important regions. All have reliable local characteristics. The fruit from each region is shaped by the weather, topography, and soil content peculiar to each environment. Furthermore, partly of necessity, different grape types are used in different regions. Lastly, localized customs of harvest, vinification, and aging make huge differences in finished wines. The very finest German wines will not only name the region, but also the village, or even single vineyard of origin. As a generality, the finer the wine the more specific its named origin. If you like one German wine, you should be tempted to seek out others from the same region.

Within each region there is a hierarchy. The concept of this hierarchy is complex but reliable. The simplest way to understand the grading system is to consider it to be a measure of sweetness in the fruit from which the wine is made. The ripeness element is crucial because German vineyards are extremely northerly, stretching the limits of where wine grapes can grow. In relatively cool, rainy years, it is a struggle to reach sufficient ripeness to make palatable wine. In fact, several of the coldest stretches of the growing regions surrender much of the harvest to sparkling wine producers, because regular table wines would be too thin and tart for the market. So, in short, in this cool northerly corner of the wine world, the sweeter the fruit the finer the wine.

“Qualitatswein bestimmten Anbaugebietes” (blessedly abbreviated “QbA”) is the bedrock of the quality naming system. The designation QbA guarantees a wine of approved grape types, of a defined ripeness level (sweetness), and a specific region of origin. Remember it is the fruit (the juice really) that must reach a certain sweetness. The winemaker can augment the sugar level of the juice to yield wine of higher alcohol and body. Wines of QbA status are abundant, reliable, and flavorful.

“Kabinett” is a designation for QbA wines from fully ripe grapes. The juice for making Kabinett wines may not be sweetened. This category yields wines of fine character, crisp finish, and delicate texture, wines eminently suited for summer afternoons or light dinners.

“Spatlese” literally means late harvest. In fact, the designation is purely one of higher sugar in the fruit. A spatlese will have all the quality of a Kabinett with added body and alcohol, and yes, generally more sweetness. The more dry spatleses are exquisite dinner wines. The sweeter ones are among the most elegant of dessert wines.

“Auslese” literally means select and denotes wines of yet riper qualities. The richest auslese wines are magnificent all by themselves and age to incredible smoothness and texture. The driest auslese wines are equally tasty all on their own, but shine with all manner of foods from roast pork to seared tuna.

“Beerenauslese”, “Trockenbeerenauslese”, and “Eiswein” are the extremes of the system. Progressively sweeter fruit is required for each designation and the finished wines are invariably rich, sweet, and thick with sugar and alcohol. These are best savored all alone.

One last note: many wines will be labeled “Trocken”, meaning dry, or “Halbtrocken” meaning half dry. These terms apply to wines from QbA up through Auslese and further define the style (not the quality) of the wine. For example regular spatlese will be rather sweet with moderate alcohol. Spatlese halbtrocken will be a bit less sweet and a bit more alcoholic. Spatlese trocken will be quite dry and relatively high in alcohol.

The modern, media-driven market has brought about some changes in the way many German wines are labeled and distributed. Some larger producers and shippers have created “trademark” wines, which may be produced in greater volume (and may even come from several different sources). This effort to make more “consumer friendly” labels risks “dumbing-down” the product to suit an uninformed market. Most of the best wines follow the old system, even if they move the more complex information to a back label. The traditional language of German wine labels provides a very accurate idea of the wine in the bottle, with well-defined rules and regulated phrases.