Liebfraumilch or Liebfrauenmilch is a style of semi-sweet white German wine which may be produced, mostly for export, in the regions Rheinhessen, Palatinate, Rheingau and Nahe. The original German spelling of the word is Liebfrauenmilch, given to the wine produced from the vineyards of the Liebfrauenkirche or "Church of Our Lady" in the Rhineland-Palatinate city of Worms since the eighteenth century. The spelling Liebfraumilch is more common on labels of exported wine.
Ice wine is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, allowing for a more concentrated grape juice to develop. The grapes' must is then pressed from the frozen grapes, resulting in a smaller amount of more concentrated, very sweet wine. With ice wines, the freezing happens before the fermentation, not afterwards. Unlike the grapes from which other dessert wines are made, such as Sauternes, Tokaji, or Trockenbeerenauslese, ice wine grapes should not be affected by Botrytis cinerea or noble rot, at least not to any great degree. Only healthy grapes keep in good shape until the opportunity arises for an ice wine harvest, which in extreme cases can occur after the New Year, on a northern hemisphere calendar. This gives ice wine its characteristic refreshing sweetness balanced by high acidity. When the grapes are free of Botrytis, they are said to come in "clean".
Mosel is one of 13 German wine regions (Weinbaugebiete) for quality wines , and takes its name from the Mosel River. Before 1 August 2007 the region was called Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, but changed to a name that was considered more consumer-friendly. The wine region is Germany's third largest in terms of production but some consider it the leading region in terms of international prestige. The region covers the valleys of the rivers Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer from near the mouth of the Mosel at Koblenz and upstream to the vicinity of Trier in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The area is known for the steep slopes of the region's vineyards overlooking the river. At 65° degrees incline, the steepest recorded vineyard in the world is the Calmont vineyard located on the Mosel and belonging to the village of Bremm, and therefore referred to as Bremmer Calmont. The Mosel is mainly famous for its wines made from the Riesling grape, but Elbling and Müller-Thurgau also contribute to the production, among others. In the past two decades red wine production, especially from the Spätburgunder, has increased in the Mosel and throughout the German vignoble and has become of increasing interest to the international wine community. Because of the northerly location of the Mosel, the Riesling wines are often light, tending to lower alcohol, crisp and high in acidity, and often exhibit "flowery" rather than or in addition to "fruity" aromas. Its most common vineyard soil is derived in the main from various kinds of slate deposits, which tend to give the wines a transparent, mineralic aspect, that often exhibit great depth of flavor. In the current era of climate change much work has been done to improve and gain acceptance for completely dry ("Trocken") Rieslings in this region, so that most of the more famous makers have found acceptance for such wines, particularly in Europe.
Beerenauslese is a German language wine term for a late harvest wine. Beerenauslese is a category in the Prädikatswein category of the Austrian and German wine classifications, and is a category above Auslese. Beerenauslese wines, often called "BA" for short, are usually made from grapes affected by noble rot, that is "botrytized" grapes.
German wine is primarily produced in the west of Germany, along the river Rhine and its tributaries, with the oldest plantations going back to the Roman era. Approximately 60 percent of German wine production is from the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where 6 of the 13 regions (Anbaugebiete) for quality wine are situated. Germany has about 103,000 hectares of vineyard, which is around one tenth of the vineyard surface in Spain, France or Italy. The total wine production is usually around 10 million hectoliters annually, corresponding to 1.3 billion bottles, which places Germany as the eighth-largest wine-producing country in the world. White wine accounts for almost two thirds of the total production.
Must weight is a measure of the amount of sugar in grape juice (must) and, hence, indicates the amount of alcohol that could be produced if it is all fermented to alcohol, rather than left as residual sugar. While must weight is a commonly used term among wine makers, the physically correct term would be must density.
The German wine classification system puts a strong emphasis on standardization and factual completeness, and was first implemented by the German Wine Law of 1971. Nearly all of Germany's vineyards are delineated and registered as one of approximately 2,600 Einzellagen, and the produce from any vineyard can be used to make German wine at any quality level, as long as the must weight of the grapes reaches the designated minimum level. As the current German system does not classify vineyards by quality, the measure of wine ’quality’ is the ripeness of the grapes alone.
Chaptalization is the process of adding sugar to unfermented grape must in order to increase the alcohol content after fermentation. The technique is named after its developer, the French chemist Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal. This process is not intended to make the wine sweeter, but rather to provide more sugar for the yeast to ferment into alcohol.
Spätlese is a German wine term for a wine from fully ripe grapes, the lightest of the late harvest wines. Spätlese is a riper category than Kabinett in the Prädikatswein category of the German wine classification and is the lowest level of Prädikatswein in Austria, where Kabinett is classified in another way. In both cases, Spätlese is below Auslese in terms of ripeness. The grapes are picked at least seven days after normal harvest, so they are riper and have a higher sugar content. Because of the weather, waiting to pick the grapes later carries a risk of the crop being ruined by rain. However, in warm years and from good sites much of the harvest will reach Spätlese level.
Auslese is a German language wine term for a late harvest wine and is a riper category than Spätlese in the Prädikatswein category of the Austrian and German wine classification. The grapes are picked from selected very ripe bunches in the autumn, and have to be hand-picked. Generally Auslese wine can be made in only the best harvest years that have been sufficiently warm. A small proportion of the grapes may be affected by noble rot in some regions although this never dominates the character of the wine. Rheingau winemaker Schloss Johannisberg is generally credited with discovering Auslese wine in 1787.
The subjective sweetness of a wine is determined by the interaction of several factors, including the amount of sugar in the wine, but also the relative levels of alcohol, acids, and tannins. Sugars and alcohol enhance a wine's sweetness; acids (sourness) and bitter tannins counteract it. These principles are outlined in the 1987 work by Émile Peynaud, The Taste of Wine.
Alsace wine or Alsatian wine is produced in the Alsace region in France and is primarily white wine. Because of its Germanic influence, it is the only Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée region in France to produce mostly varietal wines, typically from similar grape varieties to those used in German wine. Along with Austria and Germany, it produces some of the most noted dry Rieslings in the world as well as highly aromatic Gewürztraminer wines. Wines are produced under three different AOCs: Alsace AOC for white, rosé and red wines, Alsace Grand Cru AOC for white wines from certain classified vineyards and Crémant d'Alsace AOC for sparkling wines. Both dry and sweet white wines are produced.
Vendange tardive ("VT") means "late harvest" in French. The phrase refers to a style of dessert wine where the grapes are allowed to hang on the vine until they start to dehydrate. This process, called passerillage, concentrates the sugars in the juice and changes the flavours within it. The name is sometimes written as the plural form, vendanges tardives, referring to the fact that several runs through the vineyard is often necessary to produce such wines. In other countries such as Germany or Austria the term Spätlese is used to describe wine using the same making process.
The Oechsle scale is a hydrometer scale measuring the density of grape must, which is an indication of grape ripeness and sugar content used in wine-making. It is named for Ferdinand Oechsle (1774–1852) and it is widely used in the German, Swiss and Luxembourgish wine-making industries. On the Oechsle scale, one degree Oechsle corresponds to one gram of the difference between the mass of one litre of must at 20 °C and 1 kg. For example, must with a specific mass of 1084 grams per litre has 84° Oe.
Straw wine, or raisin wine, is a wine made from grapes that have been dried to concentrate their juice. The result is similar to that of the ice wine process, but is a much older process and suitable for warm climates. The technique dates back to pre-Classical times with wines becoming fashionable in Roman times and in late Medieval/Renaissance Europe when wines such as Malmsey and Candia were highly sought after. Traditionally, most production of these wines has been in Greece, the islands off Sicily, Cyprus, Northern Italy and the French Alps. However producers in other areas are now using with the method too.
Rheingau is one of 13 designated German wine regions (Weinbaugebiete) producing quality wines . It was named after the traditional region of Rheingau, the wine region is situated in the state of Hesse, where it constitutes part of the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis administrative district. Although, making up only 3 percent of the total German vineyard area, Rheingau has been the source of many historically important innovations in German wine making, and contains many wine producers of international reputation, such as Schloss Johannisberg. Rheingau, with 3,125 hectares of vineyards in 2016, also boasts a higher proportion of Riesling (78.3%) than any other German wine-growing region, with Spätburgunder making up most of the rest (12.3%), followed by Müller-Thurgau.
Ortega is a grape variety used for white wine. It was created in 1948 by Hans Breider at the Bayerischen Landesanstalt für Wein-, Obst- und Gartenbau in Würzburg and was released with varietal protection in 1981. It is a cross between Müller-Thurgau and Siegerrebe. Breider chose to name the variety in honour of the Spanish poet and philosopher José Ortega y Gasset.
Ausbruch or sometimes Ausbruchwein is an Austrian wine term for a quality level in the Prädikatswein category. It is situated between Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese in requirements, which makes it a sweet dessert wine typically made from grapes affected by noble rot. The minimum must weight requirements for Ausbruch is 30 degrees KMW. The Ausbruch Prädikat exists only in Austria and Hungary, not in Germany. The category was introduced into Austrian wine legislation in 1970, as a legalization of the production method allegedly already used in the area of Rust. Ruster Ausbruch are still the most common Ausbruch wines to encounter; in many other Austrian regions, producers classify their wines as Beerenauslese if they fall short of the Trockenbeerenauslese requirements.
Wachau is one of Austria's most established and notable wine regions, specializing in dry wines made from Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. Located in Lower Austria along the Danube, west of Vienna and Krems an der Donau, it is one of the westernmost wine producing regions in Austria with only a few scattered plantings in Tyrol being further west. While most of Austria follows a wine classification systems based on ripeness and harvest must weight that parallels the German wine classification system, Wachau wines have a unique classification system. The three classification levels for Wachau wine include Steinfeder for wines up to 11.5% alcohol level, Federspiel for wines between 11.5–12.5% and Smaragd that must have a minimum of 12.5% alcohol level. Despite its renown, the Wachau is a small wine region that usually accounts for only around 3% of Austria's wine production.
Districtus Austriae Controllatus, DAC, is a classification for regionally typical quality wine in Austria. It is loosely modelled on the French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) system, and is coupled with a ripeness-based classification scale that shares a lot of nomenclature with the German Prädikat system. Thus, if a label states the winegrowing region followed by the letter combination “DAC” we are talking about a regionally typical quality wine. All Austrian quality wines have a round, red and white striped "Banderole" on the capsule, which ensures, that it has been inspected and approved by the government tasting authority and fulfills the requirements for “Qualitätswein”, such as maximum yields per hectare, minimum must weight and alcohol levels and guaranteed origin of the grapes.
