At our last wine dinner, I served a
wine classified as “Grosses Gewächs.” This obviously prompted the question, “What
in the world does Grosses Gewächs
mean?” The answer to that question is
quite interesting and starts with the VDP.
Will this new system actually change people’s
perceptions towards dry, German wines? I
think it will. Imagine a person
wandering into the German wine section at his local wine shop and asking the
salesman what “Spätlese Trocken” means. The
salesman would have to give a brief explanation of the pradikat system and must
weights. Before he finishes, the customer’s eyes glaze
over and he buys a bottle of French wine.
If that same bottle of wine is labeled “Grosses Gewächs,” the
classification explanation is much simpler.
This wine is of the highest quality from a top vineyard. It is the equivalent of a Grand Cru from Burgundy. The customer buys the wine and is forever
addicted to German Rieslings.
VDP stands for Verband Deutscher
Qualitäts-und Prädikatsweingüter. This roughly translates as The Association of
German Quality and Prädikat
Wine Estates. The VDP is a winegrower’s
association with around 200 members. The
requirements for membership include adherence to an internally imposed standard
of quality that regulates everything from cellar facilities to yields to must
weights. The membership list reads like
a “Who’s Who” of the German wine world.
In the Mosel, members include Dr. Loosen, Grans-Fassian, Von Hovel, Egon
Muller, Joh Jos Prum and Fritz Haag. In
the Nahe, members include Schlossgut Diel, Emrich-Schonleber, Donnhoff and
Schafer-Frohlich.
The VDP attempted to change the
German Wine Law of 1971 that established the Prädikat
system that we all know and love. The
VDP wanted the classification system to place a greater emphasis on the
vineyard than on must weight. Their
attempts were unsuccessful so they bypassed the government and created their
own classification system.
They unveiled their new
classification system in 2002 and it has been a work in progress. The system was overhauled in 2006 and then
revised in 2012. I will skip the 2002
version and start with the 2006 version since this is largely the system they
are using today.
The 2006 model is the “Erste Lage
Classification” and it divides German wines into the following three tiers:
Erste Lage – This designation indicates a
wine from the best vineyards of Germany.
A dry Erste Lage wine from the Rheingau is labeled Erstes Gewächs and a dry Erste Lage
wine from all other regions is labeled Grosses Gewächs. A
sweet Erste Lage wine will have Erste Lage on the label followed by a Prädikat designation.
Klassifizierte Lage – These are wines from
classified sites of superior quality.
They can be dry or sweet.
Guts-und Ortsweine – These are high quality,
regional wines.
Of course, Erste Lage wines level must
meet criteria that are much more comprehensive than the just the quality of the
vineyard. An Erste Lage wine must meet
yield restrictions, comply with designated harvest procedures and even has to follow
certain marketing guidelines.
This 2006 classification model
should look familiar to any wine lover.
The system is similar to some of the French classification systems and
the 2012 modifications go even further in that direction. The 2012 modifications create a four tier
system that is based on the Burgundian classification model:
1. Grosse
Lage (comparable to Grand Cru in Burgundy)
This top classification retains the Grosses Gewächs and Erstes Gewächs designations for the dry wines and a Prädikat designation is added
for the sweeter wines.
2. Erste
Lage (comparable with Premier Cru in Burgundy)
Dry wines will be labelled Erste
Lage and the sweet wines will carry a Prädikat
designation.
3. Ortswein
(comparable with Village in Burgundy)
The sweet wines will have a Prädikat designation
4. Gutswein
(comparable with a regional wine in Burgundy).
No Prädikat designations are used.
This new classification system
represents an interesting development in German wines. Is this
new system better than the Prädikat
system? I think so and I also think that
this system may help popularize German wine.
Most oenophiles like to drink dry wine with a meal. If you are having a juicy steak for dinner,
you reach into your wine cellar and grab a Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Now, imagine opening the Châteauneuf and
sipping it only to discover that it was sweet.
You would be horrifed and would either open a different bottle of wine
for your meal or, gasp, open a beer.
Of course, this would never happen
– Châteauneuf-du-Pape are quite obviously dry.
However, if we change the scenario so that you are buying a Kabinett to
go with your oysters, you could not be certain that it would be dry. The Prädikat
designation is simply not a reliable indicator of sweetness. So, needing a dry wine, you buy a Chablis
instead.
Instead of throwing out the Prädikat system, German
winemakers could place a greater emphasis on the terms trocken, halbtrocken and
feinherb to indicate that a wine is dry. However, I think there is a very
simple reason why the VDP did not go this route. People tend to view the Prädikat system as a pyramid of
quality. The higher pradikats are seen
as “better” than the lower Prädikats
– a Spätlese is better
than a Kabinett, an Auslese is better than a Spätlese,
etc. While you may not know whether a
Kabinett or a Spätlese
will be dry or sweet, it is fairly safe to say that Auslese, BA and TBA will be
dessert level sweet. Thus, the Prädikat system appears to
favor the dessert wines over the dry wines. Under the VDP classification system of 2012, the
great, dry wines are now in the top category along with the great sweet wines. The sweetness bias has disappeared.
