The northerly winemaking regions of Germany straddle the 50th parallel and are amongst the world’s coolest vineyards.
Nonetheless, vine cultivation dates to the ancient world—wild vines had been growing on the upper Rhine previously, but Vitis vinifera arrived in Germany with the Romans. Near the end of the 3rd century, Emperor Probus overturned Domitian’s 92 CE ban on new vineyard plantings, and viticulture followed the Romans into provinces north of the Alps. By the fourth century winemaking was definitively established along the steep slopes of the Mosel River. Charlemagne, the legendary beard-stained lover of wine—whose newly minted Carolingian calendar replaced the Roman October with Windume-Manoth, “the month of the vintage”—introduced vine cultivation east of the Rhine River in the late eighth century. During the Middle Ages, the Church was instrumental in shepherding the development of vineyards, and many of Germany’s modern einzellagen (vineyards) owe their nomenclature to monastic influence. As in France, the Church essentially operated its own feudal economy: it collected a tithe, or tax, from the parishioners who worked the vineyards, and wine made a suitable substitute for cash. The Cistercians of Burgundy founded the famous Kloster Eberbach monastery in the Rheingau in 1136, where they amassed the largest vineyard holdings in Europe by the end of the Middle Ages, with over 700 acres of vines. The walled Steinberg vineyard, an ortsteil within the commune of Hattenheim, was the monks’ centerpiece and remains wholly intact today—an alleinbesitz (monopole) of Kloster Eberbach for over eight centuries
Hi, I just noticed that there is something wrong with the color-coding on the Austrian Map. Wagram, Kamptal and Kremstal are mixed up.
You're correct, Michael. Thanks for catching this!
Going over my notes I found the guide has Mittelburgenland DAC Classic wines listed with a release date of March 1st the year after harvest. The Austrian Wine website and the Compendium match the release release date of August 1st for Classic. Reserve here is mentioned correctly as March 1st the second year after harvest. Just to clarify, should August 1st be the correct release date here?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/travel/switzerlands-once-in-a-generation-over-the-top-party.html?te=1&nl=morning-briefing&emc=edit_NN_p_20190731§ion=whatElse?campaign_id=9&instance_id=11287&segment_id=15704&user_id=600b0fc5bf0465a7becf92c3879e
Does anyone know the status of "Message in a Bottle"? I can't find a reference to it anymore on any of the producers' websites. There is also a new organization in Rheinhessen founded in 2017 called "Maxime Herkunft" which seems to include virtually everyone in the region, including all of the region's VDP members and also all of the "Message in a Bottle" members. Did this new concept make the older organization obsolete?