German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

pulled up. After the new roads are built and the work is
completed (sometimes old walls and terraces are rebuilt
also), the growers get the same amount of land back, or
nearly, but in fewer, larger sections. After replanting, the
first commercial crop follows in three to four years.
Everyone who’s had vineyards through the process
reports that it is much easier to work the land afterwards.
It also levels the playing field, since everybody’s vines
are now the same age. It does create short-term shortages
of wine, and it does diminish the quality of wine
from a vineyard until the vines mature again, but it’s a
small price to pay to help ensure the future of viticulture
in Germany.
But here’s a curious twist. Every parcel of vineyards in
Germany is categorized by quality — categories A, B, or C
— so that when the vineyards are reapportioned the grower
gets back nearly the same proportions of A B and C land
he gave up. Makes sense. But also raises a very sneaky
question: Why does anyone still quarrel with the idea of a
vineyard classification when it has already been done?? And
is already being used! Show me a grower who fumes that
vineyard classifications are undemocratic and I’ll show
you a grower who’ll fuss to high hell if he gives up A-land
and gets B-land back.
HOCHGEWÄCHS: Do us both a favor and don’t even
try to pronounce this. Just do what I do and call it “hogwash,”
for that’s what it is. Another perfect example of
an idea that started out right and turned into a bureaucratic
nightmare. Here’s the scenario. You’re a conscientious
grower; a lot of your wines exceed the legal minimum
for their quality levels. Especially your QbA
wines, which are near or actually at Kabinett ripeness.
You don’t want to make a thin Kabinett from these
grapes, so you chaptalize. No problem so far. Except that
when you try to sell the wine, now labeled QbA, it competes
against oceans of mass-produced, cheap, lowestcommon-denominator
QbA selling for pennies per bottle
at the corner supermarket. Nobody will pay your
price. Where’s your incentive?
Thus the creation of this new term (actually the co-opting
of an earlier term with a different meaning, but that’s
another story). Think of it as a kind of “super QbA,” or it
you prefer, a chaptalized Kabinett or damn-near Kabinett.
Any chaptalized wine with at least x-ripeness can be sold
as Hochgewächs. You can even chaptalize Spätlese quality
must if you feel like it. Hogwash also has special
requirements in terms of how many points the wine
needs in order to qualify, and, most significant, one hundred
percent purity of vintage, grape variety and vineyard
site—versus 85% as the general rule in Germany.
So you can see why they needed to do it, but the thing
is just so typically half-assed! Why don’t they show some
courage and raise the requirements for Qualitätswein?
Easy answer: because the merchants and co-ops have too
much political clout. But hey, no problem, dude! I don’t
mind struggling my entire career to erase the miserable
impression so many people have of German wine
because of all the oceans of bilge those wineries turn out!
GUTSABFÜLLUNG: This is a recently permitted term
for estate bottling, and much preferable to the old
Erzeugerab-füllung which is now restricted for use by
co-ops. This is good for at least two reasons. First the
word is shorter. Second, it creates a logical connection
between Weingut and Gutsabfüllung. And third, we’uns
can remember it because, after all, it means to fill your
gut! ‘Bout time the Germans did something good with
their Twilight-Zone wine law.
THEIR TWILIGHT-ZONE WINE LAW: The 1971 wine
law is being neutered by the new generation. Eventually
it will become so irrelevant to the way wines are actually
produced and labeled it will either be forced to adapt to
reality or become a laughable anachronism. Many growers
are taking their cue from the Austrians: all the dry
wines are ostensibly sold as “QbA” because no one likes
“Spätlese Trocken” or “Auslese Trocken”. Many growers
are using old micro-site names as a gesture of recognition
to their distinctive terroirs. No serious grower cares (nor
do some of them even know) about the ripeness minima
for the various “Prädikat” levels; they name by taste, and
a “Kabinett” is the wine that tastes like one, regardless of
must-weight. Indeed there’s never been less concern
about must-weight, or more concern about physiological
ripeness.
So I asked a few of the wise old sages whether they
thought the law could be changed. The consensus is: no.
Far too complicated and messy, especially now that the
EU is involved. What will happen, they say, is far more
growers will take what’s useful in the law and disregard
the rest.
FEINHERB: There must have been a hole in the ozone
layer when they permitted this term to be used. Because
they didn’t control it, and this is most scandalously fungible,
sensible and un-Teutonic. In fact feinherb means
whatever a grower wants it to mean. It always denotes a
wine on-the-dry-side, and in practice, as one grower told
me, the local wine-inspector tolerates anything up to
30g.l. residual sugar especially if the wines tastes as if it
should have 70. For some growers feinherb are their dryish
wines above the limit for Halbtrocken. Others use it
in place of Halbtrocken because(correctly) they despise
“Halbtrocken”.
When I first started seriously with wine, herb was the
word growers used to indicate their dry (or dry-er)
wines. “Trocken” was unknown. So “feinherb” is an
attempt to rub a little spit on it and make it sound nice.
The word is neither here nor there, but the idea of regulating
it sensorily is so manifestly sensible I wonder why
they don’t apply it to all the dry wines instead of obsessing
over lab figures. Enjoy this wee glimmer of sanity
while it lasts, as I’m sure some constipated twit at E.U.
Brussels HQ will wrestle it into his airless little box.
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