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FREE THE FINEST WINES OF GERMANY: A REGIONAL GUIDE TO THE BEST PRODUCERS AND THEIR WINES PDF Stephen Reinhardt,Jon Wyand | 272 pages | 11 Oct 2012 | Aurum Press Ltd | 9781781310212 | English | London, United Kingdom Book Review: Stephan Reinhardt, The Finest Wines of Germany | the winegetter German wine is primarily produced in the west of Germanyalong the river Rhine and its tributaries, with the oldest plantations going back to the Roman era. Approximately 60 percent of German wine production is from the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinatewhere 6 of the 13 regions Anbaugebiete for quality wine are situated. Germany has abouthectaresacres or 1, square kilometers of vineyard, which is around one tenth of the vineyard surface in SpainFrance or Italy. White wine accounts for almost two thirds of the total production. As a wine country, Germany has a mixed reputation internationally, with some consumers on the export markets associating Germany with the world's most elegant and aromatically pure white wines while other see the country mainly as the source of cheap, mass-market semi-sweet wines such as Liebfraumilch. While primarily a white wine country, red wine production surged in the s and early s, primarily fuelled by domestic demand, and the proportion of the German vineyards devoted to the cultivation of dark-skinned grape varieties has now stabilized at slightly more than a third of the total surface. The only wine style not commonly produced is fortified wine. Due to the northerly location of the German vineyards, the country has produced wines quite unlike any others in Europe, many of outstanding quality. Between the s and the s German wine was known abroad for cheap, sweet or semi-sweet, low-quality mass-produced wines such as Liebfraumilch. The wines have historically been predominantly white, and the finest made from Riesling. Many wines have been sweet and low in alcohollight and unoaked. Historically many of the wines other than late harvest wines were probably dry trockenas techniques to stop fermentation did not exist. Recently much more German white wine is being made in the dry style again. Much of the wine sold in Germany is dry, especially in restaurants. However most exports are still of sweet wines, particularly to the traditional export markets such as United States the Netherlands and Great Britainwhich are the leading export markets both in terms of volume and value. Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of German wines is the high level of acidity in them, caused both by the lesser ripeness in a northerly climate and by the selection of grapes such as Rieslingwhich retain acidity even at high ripeness levels. In those days, the western parts of today's Germany made up the outpost of the Roman empire against the Germanic tribes on the other side of Rhine. What is generally considered Germany's oldest city, Trierwas founded as a Roman garrison and is situated directly on the river Moselle Mosel in the eponymous wine region. The oldest archeological finds that may indicate early German viticulture are curved pruning knives found in the vicinity of Roman garrisons, dating from the 1st century AD. Emperor Probuswhose reign can be dated two centuries later than these knives, is generally considered the founder of German viticulture, but for solid documentation of winemaking on German soil, we must go to around AD, when Ausonius of Bordeaux wrote Mosellawhere he in enthusiastic terms described the steep vineyards on river Moselle. The wild vinethe forerunner of the cultivated Vitis vinifera is known to have grown on upper Rhine back to historic time, and it is possible but not documented that Roman-era German viticulture was started using local varieties. Many viticultural practices were however taken from other parts of the Roman empire, as evidenced by Roman-style trellising systems surviving into the 18th century in some parts of Germany, such as the Kammertbau in the Palatinate. Almost nothing is known of the style or quality of "German" wines that were produced in the Roman era, with the exception of the fact that the poet Venantius Fortunatus mentions red German wine around AD Before the era of CharlemagneGermanic viticulture The Finest Wines of Germany: A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines practiced primarily, although not exclusively, on the western side of Rhine. Charlemagne is supposed to The Finest Wines of Germany: A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines brought viticulture to Rheingau. The eastward spread of viticulture coincided with the spread of Christianity, which was supported by Charlemagne. Thus, in Medieval Germany, churches and monasteries played the The Finest Wines of Germany: A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines important role in viticulture, and especially in the production of quality wine. Two Rheingau examples illustrate this: archbishop Ruthard of Mainz reigning — founded a Benedictine abbey on slopes above Geisenheimthe ground of which later became Schloss Johannisberg. His successor Adalbert of Mainz donated land above Hattenheim in to Cistercianssent out from Clairvaux in Champagnewho founded Kloster Eberbach. Many grape varieties commonly associated with German wines have been documented back to the 14th or 15th century. Riesling has been documented from close to Rheingauand Pinot noir from on Lake Constance under the name Klebrothfrom in Affenthal in Baden and from in Rheingau, where the monks kept a Clebroit-Wyngart in Hattenheim. For several centuries of the Medieval era, the vineyards of Germany including Alsace expanded, and is believed to have reached their greatest extent sometime aroundwhen perhaps as much as four times the present vineyard surface was planted. Basically, the wine regions were located The Finest Wines of Germany: A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines the same places as today, but more lands around the rivers, and land further upstream Rhine's tributaries, was cultivated. The subsequent decline can be attributed to locally produced beer becoming the everyday beverage in northern Germany in the 16th century, leading to a partial loss of market for wine, to the Thirty Years' War ravaging Germany in the 17th century, to the dissolution of the monasteries, where much of the winemaking know-how was concentrated, in those areas that accepted the Protestant reformation, and to the climatic changes of the Little Ice Age that made viticulture difficult or impossible in marginal areas. At one point the Church controlled most of the major vineyards in Germany. Quality instead of quantity become important and spread quickly down the river Rhine. In the s, Napoleon took control of all the vineyards from the Church, including the best, and divided and secularized them. Since then the Napoleonic inheritance laws in Germany broke The Finest Wines of Germany: A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines the parcels of vineyards further, leading to the establishment of many cooperatives. However, many notable and world-famous wineries in Germany have managed to acquire or hold enough land to produce wine not only for domestic consumption, but also export. An important event took place in at Schloss Johannisberg in Rheingau, when the courier delivering the harvest permission was delayed for two weeks, with the result that most of the grapes in Johannisberg's Riesling-only vineyard had been affected by noble rot before the harvest began. From this time, late harvest wines from grapes affected by noble rot have been produced intentionally. These laws, introduced indefine the designations still used today. The German wine regions are some of the most northerly in the world. Above this line the climate becomes less conducive to wine production, but there are still some vineyards above this line and the effects of climate change on wine production are growing. Since several years ago [ when? The wines are all produced around rivers, mainly the Rhine and its tributaries, often sheltered by mountains. The rivers have significant microclimate effects to moderate the temperature. The soil is slate in the steep valleys, to absorb the sun's heat and retain it overnight. On the rolling hills the soil is lime and clay dominated. The great sites are often extremely steep so they catch the most sunlight, but they are difficult to harvest mechanically. The slopes are also positioned facing the south or south-west to angle towards the sun. The vineyards are extremely small compared to New World vineyards and wine making is dominated by craft rather than industry wines. This makes the lists of wines produced long and complex, and many wines hard to obtain as production is so limited. The wine regions in Germany usually referred to are the 13 defined regions for quality wine. The German wine industry has organised itself around these regions and their division into districts. However, there are also a number of regions for the insignificant table wine Tafelwein and country wine Landwein categories. Those regions, with a few exceptions overlap, with the quality wine regions. To make a clear distinction between the quality levels, the regions and subregions for different quality levels have different names on purpose, even when they The Finest Wines of Germany: A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines allowed to be produced in the same geographical area. There are 13 defined regions "Anbaugebiete" in Germany: [4] [9]. The individual vineyard sites Einzellagen number 2, Data from Overall nearly grape varieties may be cultivated in Germany — are released for white wine production and 35 for red wine production. According to the international image, Germany is still considered a region for white wine production. Since the s, demand for German red wine has constantly increased, and this has resulted in a doubling of the vineyards used for red wine.

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