“The Wines of Germany”
The first time I visited Germany was the summer of 1990. I remember the cable car climbing up the slope in Königswinter as we looked down on to the green slopes and the river below. Germany is a complicated country, the centre of Europe, beautiful, memorable, infuriating, horrific, divisive, only recently undivided when I first visited. The beauty of the steep slopes indicated the difficulty of growing grapes and making wine, even if I had no idea at the time what the word viticulture meant.
I returned in 1994, each beer chalked off on the table, the bus driver from Newcastle dangerously drunk. It was a school trip, a classmate had learnt that drinking water compensated for drinking alcohol which led to him flooding his bathroom. I had a crush on one of my teachers, who commented on the trip how amusing I was. The other teacher sang the first, long-abandoned lines of the national anthem, “Deutschland über alles,” with a fervour which unnerved the locals. Auf Wiedersehen, pet.
Germany is a country which draws you into its bizarre, Gothic world, full of grandiose buildings, absurdly steep vineyards, words longer than the rivers, and verbs that end somewhere near the end of the 1,230km river Rhine.
It’s clearly a country which captivates Stephen Bitterolf, who, despite his name, is not German. He founded his own import company in the US called vom Boden ten years ago. The focus of his company is almost exclusively on German wine, with an enthused passion for Riesling in particular. I met him earlier this year in Sonoma: his passion is not feigned.
To many wine enthusiasts, a passion for German Riesling isn’t that unusual. But to base an entire company on importing wines that are generally misunderstood and tricky to explain is another level. Add the impossible to navigate US distribution system, and you’ve got quite a business on your hands.
Stephen writes about this—and much more—in a book he has just self-published: as with his company, he’s erudite, witty, and self-aware enough to be able to do it all himself. The book is in part a guide to the wines of Germany, but it’s much more personal than that.
The book is called Ten Years of Hocks & Moselles, named in reference to a 1935 book by one Hugh R. Rudd and a dual reference to two British terms for German wines. Hock is a generic term for white wine which has nothing to do with the wines of Hockenheim, where the name probably comes from. Moselle is the French name for the river, used also by the influential US writer Frank Schoonmaker in his 1956 book, The Wines of Germany.
Stephen makes clear that the most important element of any wine is who makes it: however great a site is, it is only as good as the people who make wine from it. He imports wines from people he loves, because they make great wine that could only come from the land they farm: “I want to write about the growers until my fingers bleed…I want to tell you about their heroics.” He quotes Anne Krebiehl, whose book (guess what) The Wines of Germany is the most informed contemporary overview of, well, the wines of Germany. He refers back to Schoonmaker and the other important writers. This book is slightly different but equally inspired: an opinionated, funny, individual guide which gives due praise to the many people who have guided the course of German wine history.
Place of course also matters, and the book delves into the different regions of the country: “love letters” as Stephen describes them. There’s a wry humour throughout the book, with the insistence on spelling Mosel as Moselle. But there’s a serious point: the river flows through Lorraine (vom Boden imports a producer, Migot, from the French region) and Luxembourg before reaching Germany and eventually joining the Rhine (Rhein). Place names, regional names, river names, all change according to where you’re standing—but all the names are connected.
He describes Germany as the Canada of Europe, and there’s a truth to this comparison: cold, continental, and both producers of ice wine and Riesling. The book is geared towards a North American audience, and it is helpful in that context to make the comparison.
The major comparison made, though, is Burgundy: “Like Burgundy, German wine isn’t easy.” Not just because the words are (very) long, and not just because the wine laws are annoyingly complicated and dense. Like Burgundy, there is a focus on place, where the wine comes from, which is extremely particular. It only takes a visit to a region such as Mosel to appreciate this: Stephen’s book comes closer than any other I’ve read to virtually take you there.
Peter Lauer’s Sekt
The comparison to Burgundy is a valid one, and Burgundy has influenced the development of German designations in the Cru system adopted by the VDP. But I think a comparison with Champagne, with its cool continental climate, distinctive styles of wine, different levels of sugar, and acid-driven wines makes even more sense—the German influence on Champagne for better (and sometimes very much for worse) is huge. There is also some sensational Sekt being made within Germany (vom Boden imports Peter Lauer, a Saar producer of the highest quality). The following point can apply equally to Champagne’s growers as Germany’s: “They’re not always better, mind you, they’re just more…human. The wines have more of a personality, they have their own signature. They are more transparent and they are less consistent, in the beautifully unpredictable way humans are.”
Stephen is adamant in clarifying and understanding that the essence of German wine (like Champagne) is not defined by sugar but by acidity: “Acidity is the central concern of all German wine.” Regardless of whether the wine is sweet or not, this is an essential truth—the screeching acidity is a direct reflection of the climate in which the grapes are grown.
German wine—“Cindarella to the famous French regions enjoying all the attention at the ball”—has undergone so many changes, up and down, over the centuries, many fairy tales with many dark sides, shaped by war as much as by its extreme grape-growing climate. At the moment, the wines are probably better than they’ve ever been—I grew up in the 1980s when Blue Nun had become shorthand for bad, overly sweet white wine, similarly to how [yellow tail] has both popularised and harmed the reputation of Australian wine. Climate change, growers’ farming practices, a focus on the precise characteristics of a vineyard, and importers such as Stephen have all helped improve quality.
As he concludes, we are witness to “the golden generation” of German wine. The book is an ode to this generation, but also to the many previous generations who have shaped the history of German wine. The passion in the book is a refreshing reminder of why we love wine, how it is so connected to place, as well as an enthused greeting to Germany. Open a bottle of bone-dry Riesling, read, and dream that you’re by the rivers and slopes, writing your own love letter. After all, this is why we drink wine.
