German wine law and climate change

This may be a question more for Martin Zwick and others living in Germany who may be more close to information on this topic.

The 1971 German wine law was intended to classify wines based on minimum Oechsle levels, as achieving adequate ripening of grapes year after year was difficult. Now with climate change, it’s rare to have this challenge and pradikat wines can have essentially declassified fruit from and resemble the pradikats of yesteryear (e.g. spätlese-level ripeness of grapes in a kabinett). In the case of wines fermented dry, this translates to higher potential alcohol.

In doing some reading in The Wines of Germany, it was mentioned that Germany was looking for ways to address this and some of the other fallout that came from the 1971 German wine law (e.g. by putting a maximum on Oechsle levels for each pradikat, rather than just a minimum). I was curious if anyone knew of recent developments.

I guess my first question would be “is there really a problem that needs solving?” It sounds like most recent vintages of riesling have been really good and customers are excited.

Is the problem just that what constitutes kabinett, spatlese et al isn’t what it used to be decades ago? Is that a significant concern for customers?

I hope I don’t sound like I’m attacking you, Brian. I’m just probing a bit to get to the core of the issue you are raising.

Jancis Robinson touched on this in the attached link that was also kicked around in another thread that’s worth a read (I gave it a moment on search but got lazy).

“Heat-affected” has been been noted as a thing in recent years and the statements around 2019 are more “classic” vs other recent vintages does highlight a trend away from what I’ve always rather enjoyed… a near unapproachable razor acidity from struggle at release vs more blunted acidity viewed as a reflection of heat and premature ripeness.

If the trend via climate change continues to induce higher degrees of ripeness, maximums might be needed to constrain/retain the classification levels as the opposite is now in play where Oechsle levels are higher (whereas they were always a threat to be lower pre-'71). Its keeping the swim lanes consistent and without undue overlap. And I think it is something that should be considered to help. Whether it is, I have not seen anything formal. The jury may still be out or folks are more so letting producers do the best they can with what the climate deals them on the honor system and retaining reputation.

Edit: If I am connecting the right dots here. Was my impressions from OP and subsequent question though not all in full.

What I’m implying is that the 1971 German wine law is outdated for current times, as it only links quality to grape ripeness levels (vs. vineyard quality). There is a minimum ripeness to strive for, but no upper limit. You can have grapes picked at 105 Oechsle and one producer will use them to make a spätlese whereas another will make a kabinett that is well on the ripe side. Unless you know the producer’s style or know the technicals beforehand, one can be deceived into thinking they bought one product when they really bought another.

I agree that maximum Oe should incorporated into the law.

I was just gifted the Krebiehl book and one of her points was that the better growers already work towards keeping their Riesling from overripening. I could imagine that you would want to regulate maximum oechsele for quality’s sake, but there really isn’t an internal market anymore for sweet Riesling (below the higher quality prädikat wines). And I don’t think we really need to worry too much about the sugar levels of a sweet Huxelrebe, since none of us really drink these anyway.

I think you have to consider the alcohol level as well as Oechsle, but to be honest I think its just fine as it is, I’d like to see more publishing of the levels in critical notes and really appreciate MFW for doing this wherever possible…

So many related issues. From an educated consumer standpoint climate change has been overwhelming positive. There really has not been a truly bad vintage in years. If we know the style of producers we can buy our Spätlese level wines masquerading as Kabinetts for the price of a Kabinett. We can go to the producers and regions who produce true Kabinett if that is what we want. Outside of Riesling climate change has dramatically improving other grapes (e.g. Pinot).

The one positive consumer benefit to this issue is that pricing generally follows the Pradikat system. I do not think this will always be true in the future. This year Egon Müller’s Kabinett sold for more than his Spatlese at the auctions.

I also think that some producers in the past who were going for bigger scores took advantage of their ability to put riper grapes in the lower Pradikat wines.

As more wineries like Falkenstein are successful and demonstrate that consumers want true Kabinetts etc. I think growers will adapt.

A fascinating topic for sure with so many related issues.

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Agree but harder to do in the U.S. with ranges posted on most bottles.

I guess I think that German wines are overwhelmed by government rules already and, while I believe some rules should be overhauled (to me, grosslagen are in most cases an abomination) making the rules even more restrictive would make things worse. As others have said, in general if we force producers to rename Kabinetts as Spatlesen or even Auslesen, won’t we be paying a higher price for the same wines (Kabinetts generally are cheaper than Spatlesen, etc.). Not what I am looking for.

Government regulation will never substitute for discovering and learning who the great producers are and who the producers you like best are. I agree that there are a lot more excellent vintages today than in years past and certainly many, many fewer bad ones. If you want wines that are more like traditional Kabinetts, etc., go to the cooler regions like the Saar and the Ruwer, which I would note is what you are doing anyway Brian.

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Are you saying alcohol ranges are posted on most bottles, because that’s not generally true. If you are saying oeschle levels are listed that also doesn’t ring true for most wines.

I just want to understand what you are trying to convey.

As for the OP, if 2006 didn’t break the 1971 wine law, I doubt it will ever break. Producers are adapting. They move higher up the slopes to pick Kabinett grapes, or even move into sites that were not historically favored that now get decent but not crazy ripeness.

Funny enough some of the best traditional Kabi (low 80s Oechsle) are coming out of the Goldtropfchen, a traditionally very warm vineyard. It’s more complex.

it seems so very un-German to me that there was not a maximum Oechsle in the original regulation.

When the law was written ripeness was hard to come by.

I think the Egon Müller case was a bit unique for several reasons:

  1. The spätlese is rarely offered at auction and the Kabinett is, so you will have a base load of consumers that want to keep their verticals intact.
  2. Quite a few buyers had put in their bids upfront and were during the auction in the actual auction room with no ability to up their bids / increase their volumes. I’m quite confident that the spätlese would have come out higher if the conditions were different.
    I can of course only speak to my own experience of sitting in the auction room and cursing myself for not having bid on that spätlese! :blush:

Overall, I think you’re right though that there’s a “Prädikat-creep” that makes the spätlese of now the Auslese of 10 years ago in term of richness.

The creep started well before that. There are highly regarded Kabinetts from the 2001 vintage that were a degree or two from qualifying as Auslese. Some even passed that bar.

Some of the change In growing conditions has laid bare how low the lower oeschle limits really are. They were not set for the high quality, conscientious growers, but rather the general community of producers.

I mentioned briefly in the original post that potential alcohol is affected by this as well. And I agree re: MFW, wish more reviewers did this.

Pardon my ignorance, but what about the 2006 vintage?

I think this is an interesting question. My sense is that the market will generally keep most producers in line. Though Oechsle numbers are undoubtedly rising, it is also true that prices increase as you go up the Prädikat system (perhaps Egon Müller excepted), so a producer would have little incentive to pick at much higher Oechsle and sell as Kabinett, unless Robert Dentice is correct and the market start rewarding it by changing the price structure.

As to the question of higher potential alcohol, I think the cat is out of the bag on that. I think we probably are seeing a slow shift in style due to climate change where the true kabinett of yesteryear is slowly disappearing.

Just googling, I can find no official effort to set upper Oechsle limits. There may very well be a movement, but I couldn’t find it with a quick search.

Also interesting here has been the influence of the VDP and the German wine law moving to align to that, with more focus on vineyards.

I always appreciate the wines that make it more clear what you are going to get given the breadth, but that’s part of the fun too. From Molitors capsules and stars, to Others different capsules, to Falkenstein’s Fuder names, there’s a lot to keep on top of.

It’s ok for the winemakers to have a latitude to bottle something that would qualify as auslese as a spatlese — as long as there is info available on res. sugar/acid/alcohol so one knows what to expect. Arguably the biggest difference is between botrytized and non-botrytized ausleses.

Germany has always been a place that the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know!