How To Read German Wine Labels
One wine bottling One AP number Unlike many other countries Germany has implemented a comprehensive tracking system for its quality wines Qualitätswein and Prädikatswein. How to read a German wine label Small eagle.
If the label indicates Erzeugerabfüllung estate bottled it assures you that the grapes were grown and the wine was produced by one and the same grower or cooperative of growers Winzergenossenschaft.
How to read german wine labels. German labels must list a quality level. How to Read a Wine Label The first thing to determine is if the wine is from the Old World Europe the Mediterranean parts of Western Asia or New World any other wine-producing region. When you see a wine labeled with grape words like Cabernet Sauvignon or Albariño then its labeled by grape variety.
A single label may indicate among other things the producers name and location the wines sweetness its grape variety how ripe the grapes were when harvested the name of the village and vineyard the grapes came from and whether the wine was bottled at the winery or by a third party. This is a barrier that keeps people fr. Abbreviation of Grosse.
It introduces a new kind of hierarchy for German wines based on its geographic origin. A wine label has a lot of information on it keep reading to better understand what all of it means. So if you see Kabinett on a German white wine label this wine will be.
The Label of German Wine contains mandatory information namely the Specified Region Quality Category Liquid Content Alcohol Level in Volume Producer or Bottler and the Quality Control Test Number APNr. Think of it more as a loose guide. German wine labels are complex but highly informative - they provide more information as standard than those of any other nation.
On January 27 2021 the new German wine law came into force. The name of the producer or estate will typically be among the most prominent text on the label. German wine labels are some of the most confusing in the world too.
In a way it. There are hundreds actually thousands of different wine varieties and its possible to label a wine with more than one grape. There are a whole bunch of numbers as well as hard-to-pronounce words that may or may not be grapes.
Trying to decipher the information on a wine label can be daunting. What Varietal Labeling Tells You. But the archaic system is inherently flawed in seemingly countless ways so you cant always rely on it.
Learning how to read a German wine label by region will offer you an even more detailed picture of a particular wine. For instance a bottle of 1971 JJ Prüm and 2003 JJ Christoffel may share some basic similarities even though one is an aged Trockenbeerenauslese and. German wines are some of the finest in the world.
The symbol of the VDP an association of some of Germanys top producers seen in image at left Cluster of grapes next to the number 1. The longer the grapes are left on the vine the sweeter the wine tastes. This system is called AP short for Amtliche Prüfungsnummer which one can loosely translate as Official Testing Number.
Weingut is the most common term used for German winemakers but its not always used on the label. Denotes that this is a top vineyard site. Similar to premier cru or first.
For our guide we used Weingut Winzer which literally translates to Winery Winemaker.
