Candid Wines | How to Read a German Wine Label

How to read a German Wine Label
With Harald Ziegler of Weingut Ziegler in the Pfalz.

Place names on a German wine label are explained.

sweet your Riesling will be:

13% = Dry. This is a powerful wine
that was likely picked when the grapes
were at a "Spatlese" level or higher.
These are likely to be labeled "trocken"
meaning dry in German.
12 -13% = Dry, but softer. Some wines
at 12% will begin to have touch of
perceptible residual sugar.
11-12% = Off dry. Expect a round soft
wine. All else being equal, this is a
category that shines with spicy food,
Barbecue from the Southwest US.
Below 11% the wines will become
sweeter and sweeter, but with healthy
acidity they can still be wonderfully
balanced and not at all cloying.
Ziegler's Auslese Gimmeldinger
Biengarten is a great example of this.

Weingut Ziegler makes Pinot
Noir, too.

Learn more about "the rise of
German spätburgunder" from Eric
Asimov of the New York Times.

Visit the Ziegler's website. It is in
German but has some lovely pictures
http://www.august-ziegler.de/

The Town of Gimmeldingen in the Pfalz.
For vineyard designates, the town and vineyard name always comes
underneath the grape variety and Quality level. Note that the label
says "Gimmeldinger" but the town is "Gimmeldingen". This is the
rough equivalent of how Chicago becomes "Chicagoan" when we
refer to someone from the city. The "er" at the end of the first word
means "from Gimmeldingen". The Ziegler's Reisling Auslese
Gimmeldinger Biengarten is from the Biengarten vineyard outside of
Hubacker" from Weingut Keller which is from the Hubacker
vineyard outside of the town of Dalsheim. Foreign as they may
seem, German labels are nothing if not logical.