 Welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horke. Today we're going to talk about those pesky German wine labels. You know, we've spent a month here in Germany tasting, visiting lots of producers, tasting through hundreds of wines. You know, in the past I've been fans of German wines before, but now I'm even a bigger supporter because there are fantastic wines being made at great price points. If you're a wine lover, the price-quality ratio in Germany is outstanding. So if this is the case, why are the wines not so popular or not so talked about as French wines or Italian wines? When I think about that, I think it's because the label. The labels have so many words on it. German can be difficult for a lot of people anyway, so in this episode we're going to kind of demystify some of the labels. I'm going to try to make it as simple as possible so you can buy German wines with more confidence. I have to preface this by saying my German is terrible, so I might be mispronouncing a lot. I'm not going to go into all the specific numbers. I'm just going to try to make German labels as easy as possible. Now you have to know when it comes to German wine and German labeling, they're kind of stuck in between two laws. You know, the old classical traditional law that's been around for a long time and this new system by the VDP, that's about 200 premium estates. They kind of have their own system, their own classification of how to label wines. And to know German wines, you kind of have to know these two systems and I know that can be confusing, but once you start to understand the nomenclature, it becomes a lot easier. You can buy with more confidence. First of all, you have to know that in German wines, they can be labeled by variety. So unlike France, you can see what grape you're actually drinking. Give you a little bit of confidence. Of course, you're going to see grapes like Riesling, Silvener, Gewichtströminer, Donfelder for reds, Lemberger, which is known as Blau Frankisch. Then there's some varieties that you know, but when you look at them in German, you might think that you've never tasted them before. Speitbergende, which means late burgundy ripener. That's Pinot Noir. You have Graubergende, Graybergende, Pinot Gris. You also have Weißbergende, which is white burgundy, which is Pinot Blanc. Those are grapes that are extremely popular. Another thing that you'll see on the label of German wines is the Village and you also see the Vineyard. Germans are precise. Think of Mercedes, think of Porst, think of BMW. Excellent pieces of machinery. They try to be precise in the wines as well. So when you look at the old classical system, the German wine law, you're going to see multiple levels of quality. You know, at the base level, you're going to see Deutsche wine. That just means German wine, table wines. These are table wines they need to be made with German grapes. That's kind of the only stipulation that can be made through a blending grape stone throughout the country. Below that, step up in quality, you're going to have Landwein. And Landwein, it needs to be from a specific area in Germany. A lot of times these are table wines, but you have natural producers like Bianca and Daniel Schmidt here. These ones, since they're natural, they're not made in a classical way. They can only classify them as Landwein. Then just below that, you're going to have Qualitets wine, stepping up in quality. And even below that, you're going to have Predicat wine, which is more premium wine. And what you have to understand about this system is in the past, Germany, since it's at such a northerly latitude, ripeness was at a premium. And it was all about labeling wines by the level of ripeness in the grape. So when you get to the Predicat wine, you're going to have some terms you have to understand. You have to understand the term first of the term cabinet, which means it's harvested at a normal time. Next is spate lazy. Spate lazy means late harvest. Next is auslesi. Auslesi means selected late harvest. It means the grapes are picked a little bit later, but they also select the best bunches. Then beyond that, you're going to get Baren auslesi, which means very selected late harvest. Not only do they select the clusters, but they select specific berries. And these wines are always sweet. The second to final Predicat is you're going to have truckin Baren auslesi. If you translate, it means dry berry selected late harvest. It means you have to pick the berries one by one by one. They have both right as these wines are intensely sweet and very expensive. The last Predicat is ice wine, which the vines need to freeze on the vine and then they need to press them when they're ice cold. Those are lusciously sweet and also expensive. But here's where it gets difficult. When you have cabinet, spate lazy and auslesi wines, they can either be dry, truckin, they can be fine herb, half dry, or they can be sweet or fruity. So let's take a look at this wine for JB Becker. You have JB Becker is the producer from the Rhine Gau. That's the region right here. 2012 vintage spate burgander. Okay, I know it's Pinot Mour. Spate lazy. Okay, I know that it is late harvest, then truckin. It's late harvest, but the wine is dry. And under here you have Wallafer Walkenburg. Wallafer is the village. Walkenburg is the vineyard. Her always means it's from that like 2012 or from 2012. Wallafer from Wallafer. The other system that you need to know is the BDP. The VDP is 200 premium estates in Germany. And they've decided, you know what, with climate change, now we're getting better and better conditions where grapes will ripen fairly well every vintage. What they want to do is kind of copy the French system and label wines by vineyards. So in the VDP system, you're gonna have a triangle, a period at the very base, you're gonna have Gutswine. Gutswine is just an estate wine made from estate grown grapes, very basic, supposed to represent the winery. The next step up, you're gonna have Ortswine. Ortswine is the village, like in Burgundy, like village level wine. You move up a step up, you have Erste Lager, which means premier crew. Obviously, these are high quality vineyards that have known historically to produce great grapes. And at the very top, you're gonna have Grosse Lager. Grosse Lager are the Grand Crew, the best site. When you understand that system, it becomes fairly easy. So let's take a look at this here. We have a Grosse Gewachs. That means a dry wine from a Grand Crew vineyard from Wittme. If you look on the label, this is gonna be terrible. Brunnhäuschen. Brunnhäuschen is the vineyard name, Riesling Grosse Gewachs. It means it's a Grand Crew dry wine. Nice and simple. You look on the back, it says VDP Grosse Lager. You know it's coming from a Grand Crew vineyard. It's got the village on top. That's fairly easy to understand once you get this stuff down. So simple enough, right? I wish it could be that simple in Germany. Some producers at the VDP kind of blend the traditional and the modern system together to make it real difficult. I'm gonna use this example from Donhof. So we have a Donhof, Niederhauser Klam, Riesling Cabinette, 2018. So you have the producer Donhof, Niedenhaus, Niedenhaus is the village. Klam is the vineyard. You know it's Riesling Cabinette. Normal harvest. Now here's the tricky part in the VDP system. If you put a wine as a cabinet or spate lacy, oust lacy, it has to be sweet. Unlike in the traditional system where they can have dry, half dry or sweet wines. In the VDP system, it has to be sweet. So I know looking at this, looking at the label here, this is a VDP producer. Comes from a Grosse Lager. It says on the back, comes from a Grand Crew Vineyard. I know that it's going to be from the village of Niedenhaus, from the vineyard of Klam, from the grape Riesling. And since it's cabinet and a VDP, I know it's going to be sweet. And of course this is a delicious wine. Whoa! Does that clear things up for you? Maybe it doesn't, but you know what? The more you try to drink German wines, the more you ask questions, you meet with producers. That's when you start to have a deeper understanding of this. You know even for me, I was really intimidated by German wines. But after this trip, after spending some time with the wines, I confident with them. And I think with time, if you try these wines, if you drink them, try to understand the label, you'll be more confident too. So you know what? You need to give these wines a shot. You know, some of the greatest Rieslings in the world are here in Germany. They make some fantastic Weisbergerer, some fantastic Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Sylvainer. There's some fantastic, fantastic wines being made all across the board. So check it out. Guys, if you found this useful, let me know in the comments below. And if you like this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Exotic Wine Travel. I will see you at the next episode.