Baden: Wines That Zig Where Others Zag
Baden is Germany’s third largest winegrowing region. From Cooperatives to Landwein, learn what makes this region and its wines so important.
Baden is Germany’s third largest winegrowing region. From Cooperatives to Landwein, learn what makes this region and its wines so important.
The one piece of German wine law I thought I fully understood was the Prädikat system. First, I memorized the Prädikat levels. Later, I memorized the minimum must weights. I pushed aside my frustration that the sweetness of a wine did not correspond with Prädikat level — accepting that residual sugar wasn’t part of the system. Before visiting Germany, I never expected that the lack of consistency in sweetness for Prädikat wines would be an ongoing point of tension in the very country that came up with the system. Or, that by prioritizing origin over Oechsle degrees, Germany’s renowned wine organization Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP) would in essence dismiss the…...
A jack of all trades is inherently a master of none. While finding the right focus can help, that is often easier said than done. Sometimes a more drastic solution is needed. Intervention, anyone? Rheinhessen! I’m so glad you could make it today. Won’t you join us? Feel free to grab something to eat before you sit. There’s coffee, tea, and water. And a big box of tissues, in case we need those later. Wine? No, at least not like that. But I’m glad you raise the issue, because wine is actually what’s brought us together here. I know this won’t be…...
Germany seems to require an official examination for everything. Qualitätsweine (“quality wines”) are no exception. Those that fail the test are slapped with the Landwein label. In April 2015, a group of top growers from Baden, deep in Germany’s southwest, joined forces to rebel against the official inspection system. Flouting what officials would think of as a demotion, they decided to wear Landwein as a badge of honor. Baden has long been seen as the kinder, more conventional Germany. Thus Landwein is a direct challenge to that sensibility, one that takes on more significance because it seemed the unlikeliest of places for revolt. It happened the way so many…...
Gerhild Burkhard, founder of the International Sparkling Festival, reveals everything you've always wanted to know about sekt (*but were afraid to ask).
Trink Magazine | This primer offers insight into the surprising contrasts and dynamics at play in the wines of Alto Adige, this small, mountainous, and little known corner of northeast Italy.
The Mosel, Germany’s oldest winegrowing region, knows how to beguile. The Rheingau swathes itself in the trappings of nobility, Baden boasts of its sunshine, the Mittelrhein beckons with Romanticism. The Mosel, however, reaches straight for myth. There are many recaps of the growing region readily available, so let’s focus on something else instead: what makes the Mosel unique — now, then, and, likely, in the future. Not for nothing is the biggest annual wine fair along the Mosel River entitled “Mythos Mosel.” The name, and the event itself, attest to the enduring power the Mosel holds in the imagination of the wine-drinking…...
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