Viticulture and Terroir

German Wine · Foundations

What you will be able to do

Give the German Wine Institute's definition of terroir, and say where the institute's own glossary disagrees with its own pages
State the vine's minimum climatic requirements as numbers, and say what period each one measures
Say when rain falls in Germany against when it falls further south, and why the timing matters as much as the quantity
Name the principal soils of each of the thirteen growing regions, and correct the assumption that the Mosel is one soil
Describe five defences against spring frost, and give the cost the institute publishes for a wind machine and the number of frost candles it says a hectare needs
Explain what Minimalschnitt is, what it saves, and on what condition that saving depends
Say which two rots one fungus causes, and which English mildew name the institute puts against which German one
Quantify organic and fungus-resistant viticulture in Germany, and say what sustainable certification adds to organic

Ask what makes a German wine taste of where it comes from and you will be given a word. The German Wine Institute uses it too, and to its credit it publishes a definition. It also publishes a second, shorter definition that disagrees with the first.

This lesson works through the institute's own material on growing grapes in Germany: what the vine needs as numbers, what the ground is made of region by region, what a grower does month by month, and what happens when the weather goes wrong. Where the institute's German and English editions differ, and they differ often, the difference is noted rather than smoothed over. A body that publishes the same page twice in two languages is a useful witness precisely because you can cross-examine it.

Terroir, as the institute defines it

The definition, from the English edition:

The factors are then named, and there are four of them: not only the soil, but also the grape variety, the special climatic conditions and the work of the winemaker. The German edition frames the intention of the idea as the wine being a tasteable reflection of its determinable home.

The institute's own glossary entry gives three:

Tasteable origin, with the components climate, soil and the human being. The glossary drops the grape variety. That is not a translation artefact or a trivial compression: on one account the vine is constitutive of terroir and on the other it is not. Know both, and know which you are quoting.

Of the four, the institute picks out the soil as the one that holds still. It is, the pages say, a relatively constant factor, since existing soil formations and geographical features generally only change through massive human intervention. The English edition gives it a line worth keeping: it can be seen as nature's memory, stored in the ground. Der Boden ist das Gedächtnis der Natur. The section carrying it is headed "The vine is the mouthpiece of the soil."

Then comes the claim the whole idea rests on, and it is worth noticing that it is asserted rather than demonstrated: if the soil is shaped by slate or lime, those components will also be found in the wine and characterise it. No mechanism is offered and no measurement is cited.

Which makes the paragraph that follows it, in the English edition, the most honest passage on the page:

The German edition stops before the last sentence. "Taste is the ultimate judge" is an English-edition line, and if you quote it, quote it as one.

What the vine needs, as numbers

The institute publishes the vine's minimum climatic requirements as a short list:

Requirement	Figure	What it measures
Sunshine	1,300 hours	a whole year
Temperature at flowering	at least 15 °C	an average across the flowering period
Temperature during vegetation	at least 18 °C	an average across the growing season
Precipitation	at least 400 to 500 mm	a whole year

Two cautions, and both are the kind of thing an examiner rewards.

The unit. The English edition prints the rainfall figure as "400-500 ml per square meter". A millilitre spread over a square metre is a thousandth of a millimetre of rain, so as printed the English figure is out by three orders of magnitude. The German page says 400 bis 500 mm. Quote the millimetres.

The period. The 15 and 18 °C figures are period averages, not annual ones. Set them beside the institute's answer to which town is Germany's warmest for wine, Freiburg im Breisgau at an annual average of about 10.5 °C, followed by Oppenheim in Rheinhessen, and the numbers look contradictory. They are not. One measures twelve months including January; the others measure a few weeks and a few months of summer.

When the rain falls matters as much as how much

This is the best single argument on the institute's climate page, and it is on the English edition only:

Read it twice. The total quantity of rain hardly appears; the whole comparison is about phase. German rain arrives while the vine is growing and thins out while the fruit is finishing. Southern rain arrives, increasingly, at the worst possible moment.

The institute draws the consequence: moderately warm summers, favourable amounts of precipitation during vegetation and a long ripening period let the grapes develop and retain their fruity acidity, which it calls the hallmark of German wines and particularly the whites. And then the trade-off, stated plainly: in Germany the quantity and quality of each vintage depend considerably on weather conditions, a factor that plays much less of a role further south.

The soils of thirteen regions

Everybody who learns German wine learns slate. The institute's own region profiles say something more varied, and the `Soil types` line on each English region page is the only description that covers all thirteen. Quoted closely:

Region	Soils
Ahr	Deep, rich loess in the lower valley to the east; slate, volcanic stone and rocky soils in the middle valley to the west
Baden	Shell-limestone in Tauberfranken; elsewhere keuper, loam, loess, granite, clay, limestone and sand. The Kaiserstuhl is an extinct volcano; glacial moraine is typical of the Bodensee district
Franken	Weathered primitive rock and colored sandstone in the Spessart north of Miltenberg; shell-limestone predominant in the central district; heavier gypsum and keuper further east near the Steiger Forest
Hessische Bergstrasse	Varied, running north to south from porphyry-quartz to weathered granite to sand and loess-loam
Mittelrhein	Primarily clayish slate and greywacke
Mosel	Clayish slate and greywacke in the lower valley; Devonian slate in the steep sites and sandy, gravelly soil in the flatlands of the middle valley; primarily shell-limestone in the upper valley, parallel with the Luxembourg border
Nahe	The entire rock cycle: igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, clay and limestone, and metamorphic rocks such as slate
Pfalz	Loam prevalent, often mixed with loess, chalk, clay, colored sandstone or sand
Rheingau	Many kinds in a small area: chalk, sand, gravel, all types of clay, loess, quartzite and slate
Rheinhessen	Loess, limestone and loam, often mixed with sand or gravel. "Rotliegendes", a red slaty-sandy clay, in the steep riverfront vineyards of Nackenheim and Nierstein, with an outcropping of quartzite-slate near Bingen
Saale-Unstrut	Primarily shell limestone and colored sandstone
Sachsen	Weathered granite and gneiss on the steepest slopes, with deposits of loess or sand in some sites
Württemberg	A diverse mix: shell limestone, keuper, marl, loess and clay

Three things fall out of the table.

The Mosel is not one soil. The institute splits the river three ways, and the upper Mosel, the stretch running along the Luxembourg border, is limestone, not slate. A candidate who answers "slate" to a question about Mosel soils has given the right answer to a question about the middle valley and the wrong answer to the one asked.

Shell-limestone is the connecting soil of the east and south. It appears in Franken's central district, in Baden's Tauberfranken, on the upper Mosel, in Saale-Unstrut and in Württemberg. Five appearances across five regions, three of which are nowhere near each other.

Loess turns up on more region profiles than slate does. Loess is named on eight of the thirteen, slate on six. Be careful how you use that: it is a count of how many profiles mention the word, not a measurement of planted hectares, and it should never be phrased as one.

Which German soil names the institute actually gives

German geological vocabulary is tempting and mostly unsourced. The institute's German pages name only a handful:

Muschelkalk (MOO-shel-kalk) and Keuper (KOY-per), on the German Franken

page, where Silvaner is said to do best on the Muschelkalk- und Keuperböden. The English edition of the same region page renders the pair as shell-limestone and keuper, which makes the correspondence a direct parallel-text match rather than a guess.

Schiefer, Porphyr, Löss and Lehm, on the German Nahe page: "Die Reben

gedeihen hier auf Schiefer, vulkanischem Porphyr sowie auf Löss- und Lehmböden."

Rotliegendes (ROHT-lee-gen-des), which the English page carries, in its

own quotation marks, for the red slaty-sandy clay at Nackenheim and Nierstein.

For greywacke, gneiss, marl, moraine, quartzite, gypsum, "colored sandstone" and "primitive rock" the institute's German pages give no name at all. The obvious German equivalents are easy to reach for and every one of them would be your invention rather than a citation.

Spring frost, and five answers to it

A warm spring is not a gift. Warm temperatures make the vines shoot early, and the young shoots are then exposed to night frost. The institute's threshold: from minus 1 °C it can become critical for the vine. Note the wording. It is the point at which the risk begins, not a temperature at which the vine dies.

The page then describes five responses.

1. Wind machines. Small stationary turbines, about 20 metres high, swirl the air so that warmer and colder layers mix and ground frost is prevented. The economics are the useful part: at around 30,000 euros per turbine, around five hectares can be protected.

2. Helicopters. The same effect over a larger area. Two constraints: in many cases they are only allowed to fly from dawn, and the English edition adds that it is extremely expensive.

3. Frost candles. These work by creating a pull in the vineyard and so circulating the air, and the institute is clear about the scale needed: hundreds per hectare. Here the two editions describe different objects. The English calls them small metal drums that burn paraffin; the German calls them paraffin-fired Fackeln, torches. Do not merge the two into a single description.

4. Fan heaters and frost sprinklers. Read this one carefully, because it sits inside the same list and is not about vineyards. The page attributes it to fruit growers protecting cherry, apple and pear trees. Fan heaters do appear in the page's own introductory sentence as something winemakers use, but the body describes them for orchards.

5. Valerian. In biodynamic cultivation, valerian preparations are applied against frost, and the institute says they raise the ambient temperature by up to 2 °C. It says so with a caveat that is unusually candid for a promotional page: why and how valerian does this is still largely unclear scientifically, though growers report good experiences, and it can work to a limited extent even after frost damage has already occurred.

Three vintages the institute names

Vintage generalisations are cheap. These three are the institute's own, and each one names a mechanism.

2010. A cool, rainy summer caught the grapes in their ripening phase, and in many places musts and young wines showed extremely high acid levels. In part the development was so extreme that conventional methods, a simple reduction of the acidity among them, keine Wirkung zeigten: showed no effect. That is the sharp end of a cool year. Not merely a high number on an analysis sheet, but a number the usual remedy would not move.

2018. The opposite case. Flowering began in places two weeks before the long-term mean, precipitation in many growing regions was only a fraction of the usual quantity, and the year will be remembered for a long time for its enormous yields.

2020. From the English edition: only one winemaker harvested ice wine, because the climate was too mild, and bud burst and flowering are starting earlier than ever before.

The institute's own reading of the trend is that German growers, at the northern edge of the wine-growing world, benefit from the higher average temperatures of recent years so long as overly dry summers do not become regular. The two editions then diverge on how far to push it. The English says the danger of late-ripening varieties failing to reach optimal ripeness has long ceased. The German says only that German producers are still well positioned for the near future with their traditionally late-ripening varieties. The second is the claim to repeat; the first is a quotation and should be marked as one.

The working year

The English edition of Arbeit im Weinberg is organised by season and is far more detailed than its German counterpart. What follows is that page, with the German names for the operations from the institute's glossary.

January and February

The old wood is pruned away, in the operation German calls Rebschnitt (RAYP-shnit). The glossary defines it as removing the one-year-old wood down to one or two Fruchtruten (FROOKHT-roo-ten), fruiting canes, and the institute's quality formulation is worth learning as it stands: quality-conscious growers generally reduce the number of canes per vine to two short ones or one long one.

This single decision, made in the cold, influences the potential yield and ultimately the quality of the wine. It is also very labour-intensive: pruning by hand takes large estates several weeks.

The prunings do not leave. They are usually mechanically chopped or crushed and worked back into the soil to improve the humus supply.

Before bud-burst

The vine's shape is set by bending and tying the canes, so that the shoots are adequately supplied with nutrients. The general term for directing the vine's growth is Rebenerziehung (RAY-ben-air-TSEE-oong), which is a false friend worth pausing on: Erziehung by itself means upbringing or education.

This is also the season for Begrünung (buh-GROO-noong), green cover: ploughing and seeding for green covering, which together with the natural growth of plants in the vineyard brings the soil to life. Organic nutrients go on now, manure, straw or compost, with supplementary minerals such as magnesium, calcium or phosphate. The glossary's word for putting mineral nutrients into the soil is Düngung (DOONG-oong). Modern soil analysis shows where the deficits are, and the institute makes the environmental point explicitly: carefully planned fertilisation and green cover help avoid ground water pollution.

On plant protection the institute offers a motto rather than a rule: "As little as possible, as much as necessary." Starting with healthy vines, grafted onto suitable rootstock, is named as part of the same strategy.

June, and the flowering

Flowering is the vine's self-pollination phase, and the institute's condition for it is brief: ideally, it is not prolonged. A drawn-out flowering risks two named failures.

Coulure: blossoming without fertilisation.
Millerandage: the development of uneven-sized berries.

Insufficiently fertilised blossoms wither or drop off in windy or rainy weather, and seriously reduce the yield.

After flowering the labour resumes. Unwanted shoots are broken out to promote growth, which is Ausgeizen (OWS-guy-tsen), and clusters are pruned to reduce yield and so improve quality.

June to August

A thick leaf wall develops and is kept in shape by tying or binding the shoots. Healthy green foliage is what drives assimilation, so leaves are an asset; but some must come off to increase sun penetration and improve air circulation around the fruit. That removal is Entlauben (ent-LOW-ben). Shortening the green shoots is Laubschnitt (LOWP-shnit), which the institute's German page places between May and August. Its English page describes leaf pruning in July and August as also regulating the height of the vine, and says the work is today usually done by machine.

From July until the beginning of August there is one last lever on quantity and quality: thinning out some of the pea-sized berries, which strengthens those left on the bunch.

Late summer, and what happens to the acid

One sentence on the page repays more study than any other:

The parenthesis is the content. Ripening does not simply lower acidity; it lowers malic acid while leaving tartaric acid largely in place.

Harvest

When a wine is ripe for harvest depends mainly on the grape variety and the weather, and the institute states the dilemma without resolving it: a wine can be better for a long ripening period, and a sudden frost or a rainy spell can jeopardise the harvest.

The two methods are described mechanically, which is the useful way to hold them.

By hand. Precise selection. Only ripe grapes are taken and **rotten

berries can be cut out of the bunch**. Pickers may go through the vineyard over several days taking only what is ready. The German edition reduces the whole comparison to three sentences: hand work allows exact selection, that is expensive, a harvesting machine saves time and money.

By machine. The principle: **the grapes are shaken down by vibration and

caught. Set correctly, and with optimally ripe fruit, the institute calls this very gentle and says it does not necessarily mean a reduction in quality.**

Notice what hand picking really buys: not gentleness, which a well-set machine can match, but selection, which it cannot.

Minimalschnitt, or the case for not pruning

Some German vineyards were not cut back in winter at all and look, in the institute's phrase, unusually wild. This is Minimalschnitt (MEE-nee-mahl-shnit), minimal pruning, and the institute publishes the argument for it in German only.

What is actually done. Instead of cutting the vine back by hand to one or two shoots and clearing the remaining wood out of the Drahtrahmen, a Laubschneider (LOWP-shny-der) is simply driven down the rows in winter to shorten the shoots a little. The rationale offered is that this comes closer to the vine's original growth habit.

The labour case. In conventional grape production over a quarter of working time goes on classical pruning. Worse, pruning has to be done by qualified staff, which in a general shortage of skilled labour, a Fachkräftemangel, is a further argument for growers. Minimal pruning takes six hours per hectare for the cutting and the subsequent bending of the shoots.

The disease case. Because minimal pruning makes no large cut wounds, it keeps wood-destroying fungi out of the vine, the fungi that kill vines through the spreading Esca disease.

The weather case. A thicker leaf wall shelters the fruit, reducing the risk of yield loss from sunburn and hail, both of which the institute says have increased in recent years with climate change.

The climate case, and it is the subtle one. Grapes in minimally pruned vineyards generally ripen later. In hot years that is an advantage, because heat-driven early ripening otherwise forces a pick already in August to stop the fruit becoming too sweet and the wines too heavy. Ripening later lets the grapes benefit from cool nights and ideally sunny autumn days, which favours aroma development.

Against all that, three costs the institute states:

1. In cool, rainy years the later ripening can be a disadvantage instead. 2. Yield must be reduced early, and the page recommends this as a matter of course for the training form, because the number of bunches per vine is considerably higher than under conventional pruning. 3. With a heavier crop and more leaves the vines have a higher water requirement. The answer at replanting is to widen the rows from the usual two metres to three, giving the roots more room to take up water. Where minimal pruning is worked in the classic trellis with a narrower leaf wall, two metres still suffices.

The institute's other pages carry the honest caveat. Pruning may be partly or wholly dispensed with, the German FAQ says, when conditions such as the age of the vineyard, the width of the rows and the intended quality are matched to one another; this is called minimal or no-pruning training. The English version of the same FAQ adds four words the German does not have: "but opinions differ."

One fungus, two names

The institute's glossary settles in two lines something usually explained in two pages.

A mould, the agent of Sauerfäule and Edelfäule. And Edelfäule is defined as grape rot following the infection of ripe berries by that same fungus.

So there is one organism, and what separates the catastrophe from the delicacy is, in the glossary's own wording, the state of the berry it lands on. This is also why the institute's note on hand harvesting matters here: picking by hand is what allows the rotten berries to be cut out of the bunch while the rest go on.

That is as far as the institute's material goes, and it is as far as this lesson goes. The mechanism by which botrytis affects the sugar in a berry, the conditions of humidity and temperature it needs, and the English common names for the two rots are all absent from the pages read for this lesson.

The two mildews, and a false friend

The PIWI pages, published in both languages, put the German and English disease names at the same position in the same sentence: varieties with particularly strong resistance to echter and falscher Mehltau, rendered in the English edition as powdery and downy mildew.

The pairing is worth committing to memory in exactly that form, because the names do not translate each other:

German	Literally	English edition
echter Mehltau	real mildew	powdery mildew
falscher Mehltau	false mildew	downy mildew

Echt is real or genuine, falsch is false. Neither English name is a translation of its German name.

Both pathogens, the institute says, were introduced from America with wild grapevines in the 19th century and have since established themselves in European viticulture. And in the organic pages there is a domestic remedy named in both editions: baking powder is effective against downy mildew.

The economics of a resistant vine

Fungus resistance is the reason the two mildews are worth this much space. The institute's page is headed PIWIs, pilzwiderstandsfähige Reben, fungus-resistant vines; a single one of them is a Piwi (PEE-vee). The case for them is made almost entirely in numbers.

Claim	Figure
Share of German vineyard planted with PIWIs	about 4 percent
Area	around 4,000 hectares
Reduction in plant protection measures	up to 80 percent
Time from crossing to authorisation	about 20 years

The English edition writes "only about 4 percent", which the German does not. The reduction in spraying brings a second-order saving the institute is careful to name: fewer passes through the vineyard, which cuts CO2 emissions and soil compaction as well.

Two further points are worth holding. First, breeding programmes now select not only for plant health but for other viticultural advantages, among them later ripening, which is precisely the property the minimal-pruning argument values. Second, this is not new and not German in origin: vine varieties were crossed with American wild species in France about 150 years ago and grown extensively, then almost completely disappeared by the middle of the 20th century. Germany, the institute says, now leads the breeding of a new generation. Its own claim for what that generation is for includes helping preserve steep and terraced sites.

Note also who plants them. The institute reports that alongside many organic producers, more and more conventional estates are planting the new varieties. PIWIs are not a subset of organic viticulture.

Where the institute contradicts itself, and how to resolve it

On the share of that 4,000 hectares taken by the red variety Regent, the two editions disagree outright.

Edition	Claim
German	entfält etwa ein Drittel on Regent (sic, for entfällt): about a third
English	"about half are planted with the red grape variety 'Regent'"

This one can be settled from the institute's own published area for Regent, which appears on the same pages and which The Grapes of Germany sets out: the published hectare figure works out at roughly 37 percent of 4,000, which supports the German "about a third" and contradicts the English "about half".

The general discipline matters more than this instance. When a body publishes a figure twice and the two do not match, look for a third number on the same pages that can adjudicate between them.

Organic, and what sustainable adds to it

The organic figures are the most quotable in this lesson.

15,800 hectares of German vineyard were certified organic in 2025, 15.5 percent of the total vineyard area, and the organic area has doubled in ten years.

What the certification requires: maintaining a balanced ecosystem in the vineyard without chemical-synthetic substances, starting with fertilising by humus and compost or other organic nutrient sources, and continuing into plant protection without chemical-synthetic agents. Against the two mildews, natural plant strengtheners are often used to raise the vine's own resistance. To keep soil life and biodiversity as active as possible, growers plant between the rows with a wide range of species.

Two process facts complete the picture. Conversion takes three years to certification, and the institute adds a human observation: it often happens at a change of generation on the estate. And since the 2012 vintage an EU regulation has governed not only work in the vineyard but the cellar treatment of organic wines. Neither edition of the page gives that regulation's number, and the plausible guesses are guesses.

Sustainability is a wider claim

The institute draws the distinction sharply, and it is the point of its sustainability page. Certified organic guidelines capture predominantly environmental aspects. Certified sustainable operations weigh ecological, economic and social aspects equally, and every working step from pruning to dispatch, vom Rebschnitt bis zum Versand, is meant to be sustainable and to use resources sparingly.

The certifying bodies the institute names are Fair'n Green, Fairchoice and Ecostep Wein, whose certification includes those social and economic criteria in addition. The examples given of the social side are fair pay for employees and training opportunities. On the material side: thin-walled bottles, because they take less energy to produce and to transport; using hauliers that themselves work sustainably rather than the producer's own vehicles; switching to green electricity; and installing solar.

And one detail that sticks because it is counter-intuitive. Green glass carries on average just over 60 percent recycled glass, with peaks at 90 percent, and the reason is that green glass has a good tolerance of off-colours. The colour of the bottle is a recycling decision as much as an aesthetic one.

A note on where all this came from

One paragraph of history, because one clause in it is still operative.

Wild vines existed more than 100,000,000 years ago. Winegrowing in the German regions began with the Romans, about 2,000 years ago. Charlemagne regulated parts of it in the 8th century in the Capitulare de villis: wine was not to be pressed with the feet, for reasons of hygiene, and was to be stored in barrels rather than skins. The vineyard area fell only around 1500, under changed climatic conditions, improved beer production and rising wine imports. Then, in the 19th century, phylloxera brought German viticulture almost to a standstill and regionally typical varieties disappeared. A fresh start became possible at the turn of the century with grafted vines, Pfropfreben (PFROPF-ray-ben), and the institute records that this procedure is now legally prescribed.

That last clause is the one to carry forward. Grafting in Germany is not a grower's choice about rootstock. It is a legal requirement, and the institute states it flatly without citing a provision.

Exam Notes

Three or four components? The institute's pages say four, soil, grape

variety, climatic conditions and the work of the winemaker. Its glossary says three, climate, soil and the human being. Say which you are quoting.

The four minimum requirements: 1,300 hours of sunshine a year, 15 °C

average at flowering, 18 °C through vegetation, 400 to 500 mm of rain a year. Two are annual, two are seasonal. The warmest wine town, Freiburg im Breisgau at about 10.5 °C, is an annual mean and does not belong in the same comparison.

Phase, not quantity. German rain falls in summer and thins through final

ripening; southern rain increases sharply as harvest approaches. English edition only.

Mosel soils split three ways, and the upper Mosel by Luxembourg is

shell-limestone. Shell-limestone also connects Franken, Tauberfranken, Saale-Unstrut and Württemberg. The Nahe is the region claiming the entire rock cycle.

Only seven German soil names are sourced to the institute:

Muschelkalk, Keuper, Schiefer, Porphyr, Löss, Lehm and Rotliegendes. Supplying a German name for greywacke or marl is invention.

Frost begins to be critical at minus 1 °C. Wind machine: 20 metres,

30,000 euros, five hectares. Helicopters: often dawn onwards. Frost candles: hundreds per hectare. Valerian: up to 2 °C, mechanism unclear. Fan heaters and frost sprinklers are described for fruit growers.

2010, 2018, 2020. 2010, acid so high that ordinary reduction of acidity

had no effect. 2018, flowering a fortnight early, a fraction of normal rainfall, enormous yields. 2020, one producer made ice wine.

Malic falls, tartaric is retained. The single most transferable sentence

in the working year.

Coulure is flowering without fertilisation; millerandage is berries of

uneven size. Both follow a prolonged flowering.

Two short canes or one long one is the institute's formulation for

quality pruning. Hand pruning takes large estates several weeks.

Minimal pruning: six hours per hectare. Over a quarter of conventional

working time goes on classical pruning. The two thirds saving is conditional on PIWIs, and the page offers no conventional hours figure to convert against. Rows widen from two metres to three at replanting.

One fungus, two rots. Botrytis cinerea causes Sauerfäule and

Edelfäule alike, and the glossary's discriminator is whether the berries it infects are ripe.

Real and false, powdery and downy. Echter Mehltau is powdery mildew,

falscher Mehltau is downy mildew, and neither English name translates its German one. Both arrived from America with wild vines in the 19th century. Baking powder is named against downy mildew.

**PIWI: 4 percent, 4,000 hectares, up to 80 percent less spraying, 20 years

from crossing to authorisation.** Planted by conventional as well as organic growers.

Organic: 15,800 hectares, 15.5 percent, 2025, doubled in a decade. Three

years to convert. An EU regulation has covered cellar work since the 2012 vintage.

Sustainable adds economic and social criteria to organic's predominantly

environmental ones. Fair'n Green, Fairchoice and Ecostep Wein are the named certifiers.

Grafting is legally prescribed in Germany, on the institute's own

statement, as the legacy of 19th-century phylloxera.

Glossary

Terroir: tair-WAHR The DWI glossary defines it as the tasteable origin of a wine, with the components climate, soil and the human being. Its viticulture pages name four components rather than three, adding the grape variety.
Flachlage: FLAKH-lah-guh Flat to gently sloping vineyard ground, in the DWI glossary's wording. Unlike its counterpart Steillage it is defined with no gradient threshold at all.
Rebschnitt: RAYP-shnit Winter pruning. The DWI glossary defines it as the operation in which the one-year-old wood is removed down to one or two fruiting canes.
Fruchtrute: FROOKHT-roo-tuh The fruiting cane: one-year-old wood selected during the winter pruning.
Rebenerziehung: RAY-ben-air-TSEE-oong Vine training, the method by which the vine's growth is directed. A false friend: Erziehung on its own ordinarily means upbringing or education.
Ausgeizen: OWS-guy-tsen Breaking out unwanted shoots so that the remaining ones grow more strongly.
Laubschnitt: LOWP-shnit Shortening the green shoots. The DWI's German page places it between May and August; its English page describes leaf pruning in July and August, regulating the height of the vine, and says it is today usually done by machine.
Entlauben: ent-LOW-ben Leaf removal, done to give the bunches more freedom. The improved light exposure and air circulation make for higher quality.
Begrünung: buh-GROO-noong Green cover: the planting of the vine row with grasses or other plants.
Minimalschnitt: MEE-nee-mahl-shnit Minimal pruning. The vine is not cut back in winter to one or two shoots; a *Laubschneider* is run down the row instead, and the vineyard looks unusually wild. The DWI puts the work at six hours per hectare for cutting and subsequent bending.
Pfropfrebe: PFROPF-ray-buh A grafted vine: a European scion grafted onto a rootstock, producing a plant resistant to phylloxera. The DWI states that the procedure is now legally prescribed.
Klon: KLOHN Clone. The DWI glossary gives the whole definition in one word: Nachkommenschaft, progeny.
Düngung: DOONG-oong Fertilisation, defined by the DWI glossary as the introduction of mineral nutrients into the soil.
Botrytis Cinerea: boh-TRY-tiss sin-EH-ree-ah A mould. The DWI glossary names it as the agent of Sauerfäule and Edelfäule alike: one organism, two outcomes.
Edelfäule: AY-del-foy-luh Grape rot resulting from the infection of ripe berries by Botrytis cinerea. The ripeness of the berry is what the glossary uses to tell it from the other kind.
Echter Mehltau: EKH-ter MAYL-tow Rendered powdery mildew by the DWI's English edition. Literally 'real mildew'. Introduced from America with wild vines in the 19th century.
Falscher Mehltau: FAL-sher MAYL-tow Rendered downy mildew by the DWI's English edition. Literally 'false mildew'. Baking powder is named by both editions as an effective remedy against it.
Piwi: PEE-vee Short for pilzwiderstandsfähige Reben, fungus-resistant vines, which is how the DWI's own page is headed. About 4 percent of German vineyard is planted with them.
Muschelkalk: MOO-shel-kalk Shell-limestone. The DWI's German Franken page names it and Keuper as the soils on which Silvaner does best; the English edition of the same page calls them shell-limestone and keuper.
Rotliegendes: ROHT-lee-gen-des Named, in the English edition's own quotation marks, as a red slaty-sandy clay soil in the steep riverfront vineyards of Nackenheim and Nierstein.