Better a good neighbour than a distant friend

Sparkling wines are produced all over the world. Champagne has the largest claim to fame, German bubbles are a little less common, literally and figuratively. That is why WINELIFE went to visit the makers of this sparkling wine in five of Germany's 13 wine regions.
Text: Petri Houweling

Grab the car and drive east. From Amsterdam, it takes just three hours to immerse yourself in a fantastic wine culture pool. You'll be in the Ahr, one of Germany's nicest (and northernmost) wine regions. That's immediately a whole other world where everything is steeped in wine culture, in the vineyards, but also in the historic towns, brimming with excellent wine restaurants and wine bars. 

From the Ahr it is southwards for the other 12 Anbaugebiete, the official wine-growing regions. From north to south, these are the Mittelrhein, the Mosel region, the Rheingau and Rheinhessen, Franconia, the Nahe, Palatinate, the Hessian Bergstrasse, Württemberg and Baden. In the north-east of Germany are Saxony and Saale-Unstrut. 

GOOD WINE NEIGHBOUR GERMANY

Viticulture in Germany is a thriving industry, there are 16,394 vintners. Until recently, due to the relatively cold climate, these mainly produced white wine. Nowadays, you can't ignore the red of spätburgunder. That's because of the warming climate. This is also present here, even to the extent that people are Experiments with grapes from warmer countries. Versuchsanbau they call this planting of cabernet sauvignon, malbec and even primitivo. But the most planted grape is still white, and riesling remains the frontrunner with 23.5 per cent of all plantings. It is followed by müller-thurgau, grau- and weissburgunder and silvaner. Chardonnay is important for bubbles, holding a 2.5 per cent share. The top three for red is spätburgunder with 11.2 per cent, and dornfelder and portugieser with 6.9 and 2.4 per cent respectively. 

Further reading? You will find more information in WINELIFE Magazine, issue 86. You can order this one here. 

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