Reading a German Label

German Wine · Foundations

What you will be able to do

Work out how small the place named on a label is, and what each rung of origin obliges the producer to print
State the four typographic conditions attached to a Bereich or Grosslage name, and the letter-height rule attached to an Einzellage
Give the two release-date embargoes that a village name and a vineyard name carry with them
Say which geographic names may lawfully appear on a PDO wine and that a Landwein may name none of them
Decode the A.P. number into the three components federal law actually prescribes, and resist the longer breakdown
Distinguish Erzeugerabfüllung, Gutsabfüllung and Schlossabfüllung by the conditions each one certifies

A German label is not marketing that happens to be in German. It is a regulated document, and almost every word on it is there because a statute either compels it or permits it on conditions. Once you know which words are compelled, the label stops being intimidating and starts being useful.

There is one question to ask first, and everything else follows from the answer: how small is the place named? German law attaches a different set of obligations to each rung of origin, and it attaches them to the producer, not to you. The narrower the stated origin, the more the producer has to satisfy and the more the label has to say.

Lessons 1 and 2 set out the regions and the quality tiers. This lesson is about the printing.

How small is the place?

The governing provision is section 39 of the Weinverordnung, and it works rung by rung.

A Bereich or a Grosslage must announce itself

If the label uses the name of a Bereich (buh-RYSHE) or a Grosslage (GROHS-lah-guh), then the word Region must be:

placed immediately before that name, not near it and not on the back
clearly legible
indelible
in the same colour, typeface and type size

Four conditions, and they are cumulative. The producer cannot set the qualifying word in pale grey capitals half the height of the name it qualifies.

For fifty years the Grosslage problem was taught as a matter of consumer vigilance: a collective name can cover a large area while sounding exactly like a single vineyard, so the buyer had to memorise which names were which. The rule turns that into a typographic obligation on the producer. The bottle now has to declare its own category, in type no smaller and no fainter than the name it is qualifying.

The German Wine Institute describes the same rung in its own words. These are the wines of delimited Bereiche or of den früheren Großlagen, the former Grosslagen, which now additionally have to be marked with the term Region.

A village name buys a ripeness floor and a December embargo

Name a Gemeinde (guh-MINE-duh, a commune) or an Ortsteil (ORTS-tile, a part of a commune) and two conditions attach:

the must or mash, in the vessel filled ready to ferment, must have reached

at least the natural minimum alcohol prescribed for Kabinett

the wine **may not be released to final consumers before 15 December of the

harvest year**

The first is the more interesting. A village wine has to clear the ripeness bar of the lowest Prädikat even where it is not a Prädikatswein and carries no Prädikat on the label.

A vineyard name buys four conditions

Name an Einzellage (INE-tsel-lah-guh, a single vineyard), or one of the smaller registered units below it, and section 39 imposes four things at once:

1. The village name must accompany it. The Gemeinde or Ortsteil name must be placed immediately before or immediately after the site name, clearly legible, indelible, in the same colour, and in a type size where the letters are at least 1.2 millimetres tall, whatever the typeface. 2. No release to final consumers before 1 March of the calendar year following the harvest. 3. Only varieties laid down for that purpose in the relevant Produktspezifikation (pro-DOOKT-shpay-tsee-fee-ka-tsyohn, the product specification), sweetening products excepted. 4. The same Kabinett ripeness floor as a village wine.

The first of those is the legal basis of the construction everyone recognises, the one that gives you Village plus Site. One detail repays attention. The law permits the village name either before or after the vineyard name, so the familiar order is a convention rather than a requirement.

The three rungs side by side

Name on the label	Earliest release to final consumers
Bereich or Grosslage	no date set in section 39
Gemeinde or Ortsteil	15 December of the harvest year
Einzellage or smaller unit	1 March of the following year

Be careful with the first row. Section 39 does not give a Bereich or Grosslage wine an early release date. It simply sets no date for that rung. Say that, and do not upgrade it into a rule.

Section 39 paragraph 1 closes by allowing each Produktspezifikation to set stricter and further requirements, especially on yield per hectare. So everything above is a floor rather than a ceiling, and a given region may demand more.

Which names are allowed on the label at all

Section 39 tells you how to print a place name. Section 23 of the Weingesetz tells you which place names exist for the purpose.

For a wine carrying a protected designation of origin, names of units smaller than the PDO area may be added only if they are names of:

1. Lagen and Bereiche entered in the Weinbergsrolle (VINE-bairks-roll-uh), the vineyard register 2. smaller geographic units delimited in the Liegenschaftskarte (LEEG-en-shafts-kar-tuh), the cadastral map, whose names have been entered in the Weinbergsrolle by the prescribed procedure 3. Gemeinden and Ortsteile

Three categories and no others. The German Wine Institute calls the second group the Katasterlagen (ka-TASS-ter-lah-gen) or Gewannen (guh-VAN-nen) names, and notes that they may be shown only where they are registered.

Then the provision that does the most work for a label reader:

A Landwein may name no village and no vineyard. At all. It is a flat prohibition, and it gives you a free inference running the other way: a village or a vineyard name on a German label tells you immediately that you are looking at a PDO wine, because a PGI wine is not permitted to print one.

Larger units work in the opposite direction. A name bigger than the PDO or PGI area may be used only where that larger unit is laid down in the relevant Produktspezifikation.

Finally, note who keeps the register. The Länder regulate the setting up and keeping of the Weinbergsrolle, including delimitation, the procedure for entries and deletions, who may apply, and deletion by the authority of its own motion. The vineyard register is a state instrument in the German sense of Land, not a federal one.

Five hectares, and a date in July 1971

Section 29 of the Weinverordnung sets the entry requirement:

Two exceptions let the authority register something smaller:

a larger Lage cannot be formed, either because of local patterns of land

use or because of the distinctive character of the wines obtained on that ground

the Lage name is protected by a trade mark registered before 19 July 1971,

or by a get-up right acquired under trade mark law before that date

The second exception is a small piece of legal archaeology. Some names were already trade marks when the 1971 law arrived, and the statute carried them forward.

Section 29 also governs what a Lage may be called. The registered name must be traditional for a vineyard area belonging to that Lage, or entered in the Flurkataster (FLOOR-ka-tass-ter), or closely modelled on such a name. A different name is allowed only in a justified individual case, and the provision names the obvious one: where existing Lagen are to be merged. Even then there must be an economic need, consumer interests must not stand against it, and the name must have a geographic reference. A Lage cannot be given a marketing name.

The A.P. number, decoded properly

Every German quality wine carries a long number, usually preceded by an abbreviation. It is worth building up from the statute.

Two approvals, not one

There are two separate approval regimes, and most summaries collapse them into one.

Section 19 of the Weingesetz governs Qualitätswein. Its construction is severe. Bottled German wine may only be designated as Qualitätswein if an official examination number has been allocated to it on application. The number is not a decoration added to an already-finished category. Without it the category is not available. It is allocated after a systematic sensory and analytical examination, on two conditions: that the wine shows the assessment characteristics typical of that product, and that it complies with EU law, the Weingesetz and the regulations made under it. The section then closes with a sentence worth quoting: the official examination number must be stated on the containers.

Section 20 governs Prädikatswein, and the verb is the point. German wine may only be designated as a Prädikatswein in connection with one of the terms Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese or Eiswein if the Prädikat has been awarded to it, on application, in the allocation of an examination number. A producer does not declare a Spätlese. The state confers it, in the same administrative act that issues the number. Same closing sentence: the number must be stated on the containers.

There is a third and smaller route. A German-made Qualitätsschaumwein or Sekt that is to carry a variety name may be allocated an examination number on application. That one is permissive rather than compulsory, and it is how a Sekt earns the right to print a grape.

Which state, and what the number is made of

Which authority? The competent body of the Land where the grapes used were harvested takes the decisions, not the Land where the winery sits. If grapes came from more than one Land, the decision falls to the Land supplying the largest share.

What the number contains is where published accounts routinely go wrong. Section 26 of the Weinverordnung prescribes exactly three components:

1. a business number for the applicant's business, allocated by the competent authority 2. the applicant's application number 3. the last two digits of the year of application

That is the whole of the federal specification.

The examination notice and the number go to the applicant within ten days of the examination, in writing or electronically, and the notice must carry instructions on the right of appeal. Notification should normally happen within three weeks of the application arriving. For a Qualitätsschaumwein or Sekt numbered under the variety-name route, the number is prefixed by the abbreviation of the issuing Land.

How it must be printed, and the mysterious L

Two small provisions explain the form you actually see on a bottle.

Section 49 requires the words Amtliche Prüfungsnummer to be placed before the number, and then adds that a short form may be used instead. The statute grants the abbreviation without specifying it. That permission is the origin of the familiar A.P. Nr. on the label, which is a customary rendering of a statutory licence rather than a form of words the law itself prints.

Section 50 requires every product to carry a lot mark, legible and indelible, made of letters, digits or both, prefixed with the letter L unless it is already clearly distinguishable from the other particulars. A lot is the set of sales units produced, made, bottled or packed under practically identical conditions. And then the detail that puzzles people. If the A.P. number is used as the lot mark, the letter L must precede the words Amtliche Prüfungsnummer or their short form, again unless the number is already clearly distinguishable from the other particulars. That is why some bottles read `L A.P. Nr.` It is not a different kind of number. It is the same number doing two jobs.

Why it matters beyond Germany

One more provision places the whole apparatus. Among the German requirements for protecting a designation of origin, section 39a of the Weinverordnung requires that an official examination number under section 19 or section 20 of the Weingesetz must have been allocated to the wine.

So the A.P. number is not a domestic formality running alongside the European system. It is written into the German conditions for the protected designation itself.

Who bottled it, and what the word certifies

Section 38 of the Weinverordnung contains a closed list. For Landwein, Qualitätswein and Prädikatswein there are exactly four permitted statements about bottling:

Erzeugerabfüllung (air-TSOY-ger-ap-fuel-oong)
Gutsabfüllung (GOOTS-ap-fuel-oong)
Schlossabfüllung (SHLOSS-ap-fuel-oong)
abgefüllt durch den Zusammenschluss von Weinbaubetrieben

(AP-guh-fuelt doorsh dayn tsoo-ZAM-men-shlooss fon VINE-bow-buh-tree-ben)

Anything else on a bottle is not a bottling statement in the legal sense.

Erzeugerabfüllung covers a co-operative

Erzeugerabfüllung, producer bottling, may be used by three kinds of user:

1. a wine-growing business in which the grapes used for that wine were both harvested and made into wine 2. an association of wine-growing businesses, where the association itself made the wine from grapes, whether or not mashed, or from musts produced in the member businesses 3. a business in the named Anbaugebiet or in its immediate vicinity, linked through such an association with the growers who harvested the grapes, and which made those grapes into wine

Read the second and third carefully. Anyone who treats Erzeugerabfüllung as the German equivalent of mis en bouteille au domaine (mee zon boo-TAY oh doh-MENN) has made a real mistake.

Gutsabfüllung is the strict one

Gutsabfüllung is available only on the first footing above, the single estate that harvested and vinified, and only if three further conditions are met:

1. the business must be required to keep tax accounts 2. the person responsible for the winemaking must be able to show a completed oenological training 3. the vineyards on which the grapes were harvested must have been farmed by that business since at least 1 January of the harvest year

The second condition is remarkable and worth stopping on. A word on a wine label carries a formal qualification requirement attached to a named human being. No other major wine country's bottling statement does anything of the kind. The third closes the obvious loophole: you cannot take on a vineyard in September and call the result an estate bottling.

Schlossabfüllung stacks a third layer

Schlossabfüllung may be used only where the Gutsabfüllung conditions are met and:

1. a castle under monument protection is the seat of the business, and the winemaking and the bottling take place there 2. the grapes used come exclusively from the business's own vineyards

Note the structure. Schlossabfüllung requires Gutsabfüllung, which requires the first limb of Erzeugerabfüllung. Three nested conditions, and the strictest sits on top. Only the last of them demands entirely estate-grown fruit and a protected building.

The fourth statement, abgefüllt durch den Zusammenschluss von Weinbaubetrieben, covers the case where an association bottled a wine it did not itself make, provided the wine was produced from grapes of a business belonging to that association.

Eight words a producer cannot simply choose

Section 38 also reserves a list of words:

The paragraph that lists them sets when they may be used on an aromatised wine or wine-based drink, and then bars them from the labelling of the other wine products the Weingesetz defines, subject to the general rule. There is a grandfathering clause for a term that was a protected trade mark, or part of one, on 27 June 2014.

Seals, medals and the two Gewächs marks

An award won at a competition held in Germany, or a quality mark, may appear on the labelling of a German product only under section 30 of the Weinverordnung, and the section is a closed list.

An award must be one of the Deutsche Landwirtschaftsgesellschaft's awards, or one recognised by a Land government. A Gütezeichen (GUE-tuh-tsy-shen), a quality mark, must be one of exactly four:

Quality mark	Attributed by the statute to
Erstes Gewächs	Komitee Klassifikation Erster und Großer Lagen in Deutschland e. V.
Grosses Gewächs	Komitee Klassifikation Erster und Großer Lagen in Deutschland e. V.
Deutsches Weinsiegel	Deutsche Landwirtschaftsgesellschaft
any mark recognised by a Land government	that Land government

The first two rows are the surprise. Erstes Gewächs and Grosses Gewächs appear in federal law as the quality marks of a named private body, and the statute names it. Lesson 2 covers the origin-ladder tiers of the same name.

For an award, the Deutsches Weinsiegel or a Land-recognised mark, the section sets minimum scores in the sensory examination: a Qualitätszahl (kvah-lee-TATES-tsahl), a quality score, of at least 3.50 for an award, and at least 2.50 for the Weinsiegel or a Land-recognised mark. An internationally oriented scoring scheme may be used in place of the schedule's own. Recognition by a Land additionally requires the wine to have been judged under objective, non-discriminatory conditions in comparison with other wines of the same category made under comparable production conditions.

The two Gewächs marks are dealt with separately. The wine must be a PDO wine meeting the award requirements laid down by that committee for the mark in question, and those requirements must be objective and non-discriminatory, must in particular provide for an assessment and classification of sites, and must take account of particular regional circumstances, especially the delimitation of sites, site-specific varieties, growing methods and production processes. Where a recognised producers' association exists for the region, the regionally specific requirements are set in consultation with it.

That is the statutory bridge between the state system and private classification. Federal law delegates the classifying of sites to a private committee, and then requires that committee to consult the recognised regional producers' association.

Two names that constrain the rest of the label

Liebfraumilch

A compact worked example of a traditional name that governs everything around it. Under section 33, a white Qualitätswein of the Nahe, Pfalz, Rheingau or Rheinhessen may be designated Liebfrauenmilch or Liebfraumilch (LEEP-frow-milsh) only if:

it is made at least 70 percent from **Riesling, Silvaner, Müller-Thurgau

or Kerner**, and is determined in style by those varieties

its residual sugar falls within the range permitted for the sweetness

statement lieblich

And then the striking part. On such a wine, the statement of a variety and of the name of a geographic unit smaller than the Anbaugebiet is not permitted.

So Liebfraumilch is defined partly by what its label is forbidden to say. It must be white, it must be Qualitätswein, it must come from one of four named regions, it must be lieblich, it must be 70 percent from four named varieties, and it may name none of them.

The related term Hock may be used only on a Landwein designated Landwein Rhein, made from white varieties, with residual sugar in the lieblich range.

Classic

Classic is the opposite kind of term. It constrains by requiring. Section 32a paragraph 1 sets ten cumulative conditions, and lesson 2 carries the rest of them. The five that this lesson carries:

a PDO wine, of the wine type white or red
the variety must be stated together with the word Classic
the variety must be one of the region-typical classic varieties laid down

for the purpose in the relevant Produktspezifikation, sweetening products excepted

a natural minimum alcohol at least 1 percentage point above the minimum

prescribed for that PDO or part of it

no smaller geographic unit stated

Under section 32a paragraph 3, in Württemberg both Trollinger and Lemberger may be stated on a Classic wine where the Produktspezifikation provides for it, and they must be stated together with the word Classic.

Read as a shape, Classic is a label defined by constraint: the variety named beside the word itself, no site, and a raised alcohol floor.

Exam Notes

The Cabinet trap. The words Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein may not be used in trade, alone or in combination with other words, for products other than wine. But for Qualitätsschaumwein, Sekt and Sekt b.A. the word Cabinet, in that spelling, may be used, provided it is clearly separated from the designation of the product and used in connection with the name of the maker or of the party placing the product on the market. A deliberate spelling escape hatch, and a good examiner's question.

A brand must stand apart. On the bottle presentation, in price offers or in advertising, a brand, whether a word or a device, may be used next to the wine designation only if it is clearly set apart from it. The purpose is to stop a brand name being read as part of the origin.

Sweetened wines and the 25 percent allowance. Where a Qualitätswein, Prädikatswein, Qualitätsperlwein b.A. or Qualitätslikörwein b.A. has been sweetened, it may still name a Lage, Bereich, Gemeinde, Ortsteil or registered smaller unit if not more than 25 percent of the products used to make it come from other smaller units and all the grapes come from the Anbaugebiet. The same 25 percent allowance appears for variety and for vintage on sweetened wines.

The 85 percent cumulation rule. Variety and vintage may be claimed together only if at least 85 percent of the resulting blend comes from the named variety and the named vintage. Where a smaller geographic unit than the Anbaugebiet is claimed as well, at least 85 percent must come from that unit, that variety and that vintage. Note the precise scope. The provision governs using the European permissions in combination, and this lesson did not consult the European text, so do not quote 85 percent as the standalone minimum for a varietal or a vintage wine.

Perlwein (PAIRL-vine) has its own sweetness figures, and they are not the still wine bands. Lesson 2 carries them.

Alkoholfrei needs a figure attached. Where the term entalkoholisierter must be used, the product may additionally be labelled alkoholfrei. But as soon as the actual alcohol content reaches 0.05 percent by volume, the statement alkoholfrei must be supplemented by (< 0,5 % vol). Where teilweise entalkoholisierter must be used, alkoholreduziert may be added.

What this lesson does not cover. The European list of compulsory particulars sits in European regulations that could not be consulted for this lesson. German law cites those instruments constantly, and every cross-reference above is reported as the German text states it, but that is a citation rather than a reading. Treat this lesson as authoritative on the German layer, and go to the European text for the European one.

Glossary

Amtliche Prüfungsnummer: AMT-lish-uh PREW-foongs-noo-mer The official examination number. No German wine may be called Qualitätswein or carry a Prädikat without one, and it must be printed on the container.
Prüfungsbescheid: PREW-foongs-buh-shite The examination notice. The written or electronic decision that carries the number, issued within ten days of the examination and subject to a right of appeal.
Betriebsnummer: buh-TREEPS-noo-mer The business number allocated to the applicant by the competent authority. The first of the three components of an examination number.
Weinbergsrolle: VINE-bairks-roll-uh The vineyard register. A Lage or Bereich must be entered in it before its name may appear on a label. Each Land sets up and keeps its own.
Liegenschaftskarte: LEEG-en-shafts-kar-tuh The cadastral map. Units smaller than an Einzellage may be named on a label only if they are delimited here and then entered in the Weinbergsrolle.
Flurkataster: FLOOR-ka-tass-ter The land parcel register. A vineyard name qualifies for registration if it is traditional for the site or recorded here, or closely modelled on such a name.
Erzeugerabfüllung: air-TSOY-ger-ap-fuel-oong Producer bottling. Open to an estate that harvested and vinified its own grapes, and also to an association of growers that made the wine itself.
Gutsabfüllung: GOOTS-ap-fuel-oong Estate bottling. Available only to the single estate that harvested and vinified, and only if it keeps tax accounts, has a trained oenologist responsible for the winemaking, and has farmed the vineyards since 1 January of the harvest year.
Schlossabfüllung: SHLOSS-ap-fuel-oong Castle bottling. Everything Gutsabfüllung requires, plus a castle under monument protection as the seat of the business where the wine is made and bottled, and grapes exclusively from the estate's own vineyards.
Zusammenschluss von Weinbaubetrieben: tsoo-ZAM-men-shlooss fon VINE-bow-buh-tree-ben An association of wine-growing businesses. The statutory term that covers a co-operative, and the reason Erzeugerabfüllung is not a guarantee of single-estate bottling.
Gütezeichen: GUE-tuh-tsy-shen A quality mark. Only four kinds may appear on a German label: Erstes Gewächs and Grosses Gewächs from a named committee, the Deutsches Weinsiegel, and any mark recognised by a Land government.
Qualitätszahl: kvah-lee-TATES-tsahl The score awarded in the sensory examination. A competition award needs at least 3.50, the Deutsches Weinsiegel and a Land-recognised quality mark at least 2.50.
Liebfraumilch: LEEP-frow-milsh A white Qualitätswein of the Nahe, Pfalz, Rheingau or Rheinhessen, at least 70 percent Riesling, Silvaner, Müller-Thurgau or Kerner, in the lieblich sweetness range, and forbidden to name either a variety or any place smaller than the region.
Los: lohss The lot. The set of sales units produced, made, bottled or packed under practically identical conditions, marked on the bottle and normally prefixed with the letter L.