Wunderwein: German Pinot Noir!!!
9/3/2024
Although the map above doesn’t show all the regions in France where Pinot Noir is grown (the Jura & Loire to name a few), the idea is more to show how much is grown in Germany for well over 1000 years, being the third largest producer worldwide after the USA and France. We’ll be looking at Pinots from different regions in Germany, where with climate change, being too cool a climate is no longer an issue. As I was to discover when I started down this rabbit hole, there are too many to fit in one article so consider this PART 1.
[Baden Wine Route stretching from Mannheim down to Basel across the Rhine from Alsace, France]
As seen in the map above, Baden is Germany's longest wine region and main Pinot Noir region. As with any very large wine region, there are varying soil types but the main one is limestone to the north and volcanic to the south. These produce wines of great power and concentration but also elegance and finesse. From the southern, volcanic region of Kaiser- stuhl, we have producer Dr. Heger and farther north, we have Enderle and Moll (across the border from Mulhouse for the former and Selestat for the latter.)
Heading northeast from southern Baden to the Stuttgart area, we come to the lesser known region of Wurttemberg directly to the north and south of the city. The southern region is more mountainous, volcanic and otherwise known as the Swabian Jura as the soils are full of Marne blanche, formed by the corals and marine life that thrived in the then sea, toward the end of the Jurassic era. This is where we find Helmut Dolde and his mountain wines from some of the highest vineyards in all of Germany, some as high as 1600 feet. Here we will reference text from a fantastic article penned by wine-writer Valerie Kathawala, who researched the area and interviewed Helmut. "The Swabian Alps are an extension of the Swiss Jura formation. What makes them so distinctive for wine is the presence of Jurassic soils that, according to Dolde, have long since eroded from nearly all other German vineyard areas. “We have the same geology as Burgundy, exactly the same geologic layer. You can find the same fossils. You can find the same plants. If you take a mirror, it's one to one.” One reason you’ve heard of Montrachet, not Linsenhofen, is climate. “We are more north and we are higher,” Dolde explains. “We are the cool Burgundy. But, perhaps the Burgundy of the future.”
To read Valerie's full article, click here!
Moving directly north of Alsace and due east from Wurttemberg, we arrive at the Pfalz, Germany's second largest wine growing region and one of Germany’s warmest. Like Baden, winters in the Pfalz are mild, and the area notably averages 1800 hours of sunshine a year. The hot sun of the Pfalz is counteracted by the gentle slopes of the Palatinate Forest, leading to a mild climate ideal for wine production. Although technically the largest producer of Riesling, it is also known for it's Burgundian varietals. Like it's southern neighbor Alsace, the Pfalz hosts a plethora of soil types: sandstone, limestone, basalt, loess, loam, gravel, red slate and clay. The Pfalz’s most historic wineries and best-known vineyards are located in the region’s northern sector, the Mittelhaardt (as seen in pink on the map to the right). Hosting a large amount of limestone, the area around Bad Durkheim is where we find some of the oldest wineries such as Muller-Ruprecht,(yes, related to Koehler-Ruprecht ). As it's still summer, we will be offering their delightful rose.
Continuing directly north from the Pfalz, we cross over into the Rheinhessen, Germany's largest wine growing region. The southeastern half is hillier and limestone dominant. Here we find Keller and Battenfeld Spanier just across the border from the Pfalz (shown in light pink) in the southern Wonnegau west of Worms (shown in light green). Although, the main production is dedicated to white grapes, the new trend in the region is for red wines with global warming producing riper conditions. With it's similar climate and terroir, the pinot noir from the region skews extremely Burgundian.
Turning due east from the Rheinhessen till the Mosel, we then head 60 miles straight north to the Ahr river which runs parallel from Belgium. A tributary that empties into the Rhine south of Bonn, it is a narrow canyon that specializes in red wines despite it's most northerly locale and is one of Germany's smallest wine regions with a surprisingly mild climate in parts. The vineyards in the western part are grown on extremely steep volcanic slate slopes lending an intense minerality and smokiness to their Spatburgunders. Here, along with fellow sister winemakers Meyer-Nackel, we find the wines of 5th generation Julia Bertram in Dernau. She is responsible for converting the Domaine to organic viticulture with spontaneous fermentation in large used barrels. A great new find.
We were hoping to have an example from the Mosel but that will be for Part 2 when it arrives in the fall. along with one from Franken and others from the above regions. In the meantime, we hope you will enjoy this sampling of Teutonic Spatburgunders.
Prost!
-Giselle Hamburg
