The Culture of Wine: Germany
Modern Germany, like Italy, is a nineteenth-century creation, bringing together competing regions as one unified country. Those regions give Germany many identities, from the port city of Hamburg, the brutalism of Berlin, the industrialism of the Ruhr Valley, castles on top of wooded mountains, the BMWs of Munich, the Mercedes of Stuttgart, Black Forest Cakes, and lederhösen. The language is dense and harsh, with words longer than this post, and verbs that end several pages after the sentence started.
Germany is the centre of Europe, and Europe has been defined, altered, destroyed, and held together by Germany. Its geographical position has made it the ground for many wars over the centuries, the focus of power machinations, control of land, religious conflict, the idea of identity. Fascism comes from Germany, by way of Italy. Communism comes from Germany, by way of England. Some of the wars weren’t started by Germans, but they found themselves in them; other wars certainly were started by them, and they were horrific.
The Hundred Years War sounds as long and terrible as its name. A war that was in part about religion and in part about territory, crossing across Central Europe, it finished in the mid-1600s. Germany’s economy was devastated, farmers returning to their destroyed properties, having to revive their livelihood. Crops that grew quickly were widely planted; grape vines, which take much longer to develop, dropped completely from the previous level of 400,000ha. But farmers needed to plant as much as they possibly could, so vines were planted on the rocky slopes above the rivers where nothing else would grow. There was no viticultural research in these plantings, it was done out of necessity. And that’s how the story of the greatest German wines begins and those vineyards are the basis of every image of German wine regions.
The Second World War is much more recent and even more horrific, and still underpins an understanding of German culture. Germany finished the war a fractured, bruised, guilty country that had to be rebuilt. German cities were reconstructed, and German identity had to be reset. The success of Germany since then was not guaranteed: East and West Germany were only unified in 1990, and that was not and has not continued to be easy. (Read Stasiland for a compelling account of 1980s East Germany.) The 1954 football World Cup saw Saarland, which the French were reluctant to allow become part of West Germany, compete as a separate country to try (and fail to) qualify. The 1954 World Cup was won instead by West Germany, a bunch of semi-professional players, a moment that declared democratic, international Germany was back, soundtracked to the famous radio commentary from Herbert Zimmermann: “Tor für Deutschland! Drei zu zwei führt Deutschland. Halten Sie mich für verrückt, halten Sie mich für übergeschnappt!”*
By the 1950s, there were just 55,000ha of plantings left (now there are 100,000ha). The German wine industry had to restart. The Müller-Thurgau grape variety was promoted because it’s much easier to grow than Riesling. The plan worked: German wine in the 1970s and 80s was extremely fashionable, and Germany became the fourth biggest producer of wine in the world. The downside was that wines such as Blue Nun, Black Tower, and Liebfraumilch weren’t very good, cloyingly sweet imitations of the best Riesling, and the reputation of German wine went into decline that it’s happily recovering from.
Despite all those wars, Germany doesn’t have much of a history of colonial conquest, but there is a long history of immigration and emigration. Gastarbeiter are “guest workers,” moving to Germany to provide temporary work but often staying permanently and historically often from Turkey. Racial tensions result. The footballer Mesmut Özil, who has a Turkish background, said that, “I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when I lose.” Migration goes the other way too. The oldest existing winery in Napa Valley is Charles Krug; the second oldest in Sonoma is Gundlach-Bundschu. In South Australia, German migrants planted Riesling on the slopes of Eden and Clare Valleys: Henschke remains one of the finest producers in the country.
Those are stories of Germany and its agriculture recovering from wars. They are also stories of Germany being a disputed territory and of Germany disputing territories around it. They are stories of how Germany has had to constantly reinvent itself. They are stories of migration. None of the stories is easy but Germany is like its language: not easy.
*”Goal for Germany! Germany lead 3-2. Call me mad, call me crazy!"
