Weathering the Frost: The VDP Answers Catastrophe with Solidarity

The Verein Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP), an association of top German winemakers, is about to break one of its own cardinal rules. Normally, any bottle marketed as a VDP wine must be made from a member estate’s own grapes. This is a fundamental part of the VDP’s promise of quality: if you see the organization’s distinctive eagle seal on the capsule, you can be confident that there is no bait-and-switch at work. But rules, as the saying goes, are mostly made to be broken.

The move is a one-time response to the unusually brutal late-April frosts that struck hard in many parts of Germany, as well as Austria and Alto Adige-Südtirol. While growers of all stripes were affected, Sachsen, Saale-Unstrut, the Nahe, Ruwer, and the Saar were, by all accounts, the worst hit among German wine regions. Some growers, VDP or not, reported up to 100% of the vintage destroyed over the course of two nights.

Depending on the severity of the frost damage, a vine’s secondary shoots can produce fruit. Follow-up queries to estates throughout Germany revealed, however, that these hopes went largely unrealized in 2024. “The secondary buds did produce a fantastic canopy,” notes Jochen Ratzinger of Weingut Ratzinger in the Mittelrhein. “But they grew almost no grapes.” Robert Haller of Weingut Bürgerspital in Franken reports that Scheurebe and Bacchus were particularly hard hit. “The secondary shoots for those varieties barely produced fruit… we predict harvests roughly one-half smaller than normal.”

Bidding for Berries: A New VDP Börse Is Born

As the wider winemaking world struggles with a response to the growing threats posed by climate change, the VDP is moving to mitigate the extraordinary impact of this particular frost incident on its members. Specifically, the association intends to organize a Traubenbörse, or grape exchange, to allow frost-stricken estates to find and buy suitable surplus grapes from other VDP member estates for use in their own wines. Many terms and conditions will apply, of course: the bought-in grapes will only be eligible for use at Gutswein level; access to the Börse will be solely by application, with the VDP itself deciding on a case-by-case basis which estates will be approved; labels for wines with bought-in grapes will need to feature specific language indicating them as such.

The proposal represents a significant and concrete update to the association’s playbook for handling crises.

Details remain nebulous for now. Only after grapes have been brought in across the nation can surplus be matched to need. But the proposal, which has already been ratified by the VDP leadership board, nevertheless represents a significant and concrete update to the association’s playbook for handling crises. To be clear, no legislative help is required here. The VDP is ultimately a private club, not a government-regulated appellation, and its rules are thus a matter of internal politics. But the organization has studiously avoided such rule-bending in the past whenever possible. So why now?

Climate Change Knows No Borders

One reason is perhaps somewhat specific to the nature of this catastrophe. Unlike hail and fungal disease, which tend to be hyper-localized, the frost affected entire winegrowing regions. As such, it is not just individual estates whose existences are threatened, but entire regions. This is especially true of the two easternmost winegrowing districts, Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut. These are relative newcomers to the VDP and their estates — perhaps excepting Schloss Proschwitz — are more start-ups than centuries-old institutions. 

A contrasting example drives home the point: The Ruwer was as badly hit by the frost as any district in the east, but a centuries-old estate like Weingut Maximin Grünhaus has deeper resources at its disposal. As Maximin von Schubert, who runs the VDP member estate, reported back in April, his estate had built up a strategic reserve of various quality levels over the years, allowing it to bridge the gap even if an entire vintage fails. In his words, things might get a little tight, but their liquidity insurance is truly liquid and resting in their cellars already.

It is not just individual estates whose existences are threatened in 2024, but entire regions. This is especially true of Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut.

Not so for many of the growers, VDP and otherwise, in the east. Their post-communist businesses are not old or large enough to have stockpiled major reserves. They believe that if they cannot deliver a vintage to restaurants and retail stores, those outlets will shift quickly to other entry-level wines, potentially not from Germany at all. And those slots on shelves and wine lists might never return. For all the attention the VDP commands, it is important to remember that it represents only  7.5% of total sales of German wine. It can’t afford to abdicate entire regions.

Strength Through Solidarity

Beyond fundamental commercial concerns, it appears that the VDP might also be discovering the joys of solidarity. Its highly visible Ahr flood relief efforts helped vintners beyond just VDP members, and drew significant goodwill toward the organization. Those efforts already differed somewhat from the type typically seen in the wine world, perhaps reflecting the historic nature of the unimaginable destruction wrought upon the Ahr in 2021. The wine world often sees charitable aid going to individual estates that have suffered from natural disasters, but a national organization pulling together for a region is more unusual.

Germany might serve as a unique player in this regard, as it is one of the few winegrowing nations whose major players have organized themselves into a national, non-governmental organization. Most other nations are organized into strong regional organizations, which by their nature tend primarily to look after their own; even Austria’s ÖTW, perhaps the closest cognate, still doesn’t cover all of that nation’s winegrowing regions in the way the VDP does. And this suggests a different perspective on the value of collective effort.

The VDP for its part has kept largely mum on its plans. Steffen Christmann, president of the VDP, indicated that this would change once the harvest was in and the details of the grape exchange were in place, including how many VDP estates would potentially be requesting a dispensation.

The low-key approach might reflect some of the risks associated with the move. Well-intentioned or not, any tinkering with the VDP’s promise of quality can have an outsized impact on consumer sentiment. As an example, Armin Tement, president of Austria’s Südsteiermark Winegrowers Association (STK), recalled the period following ruinous hailstorms in his region in 2016. Like the VDP, STK normally allows only an estate’s own grapes to be used, but made an exception for affected estates. Media resonance, according to Tement, tended toward panic, thus damaging sales and reputations. “It’s not always a good thing,” he said of the charitable impulse.

Perhaps the VDP has decided to draw inspiration from the vines themselves. Environmental stress on grape  vines forces them to dig deeper, adapt, and become more robust. (If it doesn’t kill them first, that is. #ThanksNietzsche.) Might the same hold true for German vintners? In the face of a frosty future, it might just be their best chance — individually, as an association, and even as an industry — to navigate the many challenges ahead.