A Question of Sweetness

The newly-reunited German people can be expected to go from strength to strength in almost every conceivable way this decade. But there remains one important issue at stake in terms of their national health and international image. And I’m not talking about steroids in sport, either.

Germany could well take the title of the world’s financial and manufacturing centre from Japan. It could go on winning soccer World Cups, seemingly at will. It might even abandon the idea of reuniting all German peoples. But can it convince us that it’s lost its sweet tooth? I doubt it.

Germany is the only country on the planet where wine quality is measured according to the sweetness of the grapes from which it is to be made. When you consider how close to the Arctic circle it is, and how little sunshine filters its way through its increasingly industrialised atmosphere, it’s little wonder that its inhabitants place so much emphasis on sugar.

What’s more, the Germans drink beer with food. Wine is generally consumed between and after meals, especially around afternoon-tea and after dinner. So what sort of wine best accompanies Black Forest and strudel? Sweet wine. And they make it by the ocean and then export it around the world at subsidised prices. Is it too late for Australia to join the EEC? Perhaps that’s the answer for Australian agribusiness!

Remember the German/Austrian wine scandal. Certain Austrian wine was ‘doctored’ with additions of ethylene glycol, known to mechanics as anti-freeze, which had the alleged effect of enhancing the perception of sweetness given by the wine, and therefore, its quality.

Various German shippers and blenders purchased Austrian wine, which was either labelled to make it look ‘German’, or blended to bolster their quantities of German wine. These wines were sold around the world, until the bubble burst and the wines recalled. Pieroth was one particular German-based company which withdrew wine from the Australian market.

The story ended the following winter, one of the coldest in history, when tankers filled with anti-freezed wine were required to spray their contents over frozen roads! Truth is indeed stranger than fiction!

To pick up a bottle of German wine, then to read the label and comprehend it requires a sound knowledge of German wine law and a photographic memory. There are basically four recognised levels of wine quality in Germany.

‘Tafelwein’ is the humblest category. It’s made for a single purpose – to quench the thirst, but sometimes it fails to do even that. Some restrictions apply to the making of this wine, but perhaps not enough. You can’t find it in Australia, but if you stumble into one on a European vacation, check before it’s too late if the prefix ‘Deusche’ appears on the label. At least, then, the German wine in question will actually come from Germany.

A slightly higher level of Tafelwein was introduced in 1982, called ‘Landwein’. These are of the drier type I shall refer to later, and should be superior to your average Tafelwein. So, might I add, should swampwater.

Moving onto the more drinkable scale is the second highest category, Qualitatswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete QbA, which quite obviously means ‘quality wine with a designated region’. Something a little more answerable, I think. These wines may have their alcohol content enhanced by an addition of sugar before fermentation, must be made from approved grapes, must reach a minimum prescribed level of ripeness before harvest, and pass a taste test to acquire an Amtliche Prufung AP number, which is the wine’s unique certification and identification. AP numbers must be placed on the label.

Those tawdrily decorated Blue Nuns, Black Towers and other such subtly labelled liquors which fall under the category of ‘Liebfraumilch’ are also a sub-set of the QbA wines.

Although superior in quality to the two preceding categories, QbA wines are generally thin, steely and lacking fruit. While we grow such flavoursome, refreshing riesling in Australia, they have no real place on the tables of the educated wine drinker, unless one of special quality happens to land here.

Awkwardly translated as ‘wines with special attributes’, the highest level of German wine is called Qualitatswein mit Pradikat QmP. It has several sub-categories itself, depending on how late the grapes were picked into the ripening season, and therefore how sweet they were.

From ‘Kabinett’ roughly moselle sweetness we move through Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese. Roughly speaking, the longer the word, the sweeter the wine. Generally most are firstly fermented to dryness, before being blended to a sussreserve sweet reserve of unfermented grape juice the same as that from which the wine was made to arrive at a wine exhibiting an ideal balance between sugar and acidity.

By the Trockenbeerenauslese stage the grapes are so sweet and so dried out while still on the vine and infected with the sweetening fungus ‘noble rot’, they resemble the grapes from which the great sweet wines of Sauternes in France are made. Depending on who you talk to, either the Germans or the French were the first to make wine from such grapes.

As you can see, the common denominator of all these wines is sugar, or sweetness. Are the Germans carefully side-stepping the global trend to drink dry? Or at least, to think dry? Not quite. Aware that their lucrative overseas markets, especially the UK and USA, are facing steadily improving dry alternatives from France, Italy, Spain, Chile and, believe it or not, Australia, German wine producers now have a couple of drier quality categories to aspire to – Trocken and Halbtrocken.

Halbtrocken half-dry wines are firstly made dry, with the addition of some sweet reserve, and may not exceed 18 grams of unfermented sugar per litre. Trocken dry wines are made the same way and may not exceed 9 grams. Depending on when the grapes are harvested, the wines may be labelled in conjunction with the terms Kabinett, Auslese and others, but in this case the ‘pradikat’ refers not to the wine’s degree of sweetness, but to the level of the sugar at the time of picking.

Although these wines have received a bucketing from the English press for their lack of flavour, excessive acidity and lack of balance, it is here that there future lies for German wine. Ultimately it is with dry white wine that their reputation, and export income, will arrive. But can the Germans convince us they can do it?

I don’t have much time for the dryish German wines made from fruit of anything less than spatlese level. It is only here that the grapes must acquire enough sugar to yield over eleven percent alcohol by volume although in some districts the permissible level may be as low as ten, a bare minimum for riesling when made to Australian standards. You need either alcohol or sugar to achieve body in a non-wooded grape like riesling, and alcohol is essential for drier wines.

The challenge is there for Germany’s winemakers. The world will demand quality dry wine at realistic prices. And with labels you can remember without a lap-top computer. Are they up to it? Please login to post comment