Winemaking and Styles

German Wine · Foundations

What you will be able to do

Run the seven steps of the German cellar in order, and say what the Abstich separates from what
Give the alcohol figure at which the German Wine Institute says the yeast is exhausted, and say what that one number explains
Define Süssreserve as the institute's glossary defines it, and say at what moment in the process it is set aside
State the closed-list principle in Weingesetz section 13, and say on what condition a German authority may permit acidification
Give the capacities of the barrique, the tonneau and the three sizes of Stückfass, and say why a barrique is used for at most three years
Say how many Weinarten the institute publishes, and why the honest answer is three, four and a fourth colour at once
Separate Blanc de Noir, rosé and Rotling by what is done to the skins, say what makes a Weissherbst a Weissherbst, and name the three regional Rotlinge
Give all four statutory requirements for Winzersekt, and say from what moment its nine months on the lees is counted

Six lessons have now been spent on the vineyard: where it is, how it is classified, what is planted in it, what the ground is made of and what a grower does there between January and October. This one is about the building at the end of the track. The grapes arrive at the press as one thing and leave the cellar door as several, and almost every difference between them, white against rosé against Blanc de Noir against orange, is a decision about a mash and a clock.

The German Wine Institute publishes a step-by-step account of that process, in German and in English, and it publishes a glossary of 145 terms that defines the operations individually. The two do not always agree, and neither always agrees with the statute. Where they differ, this lesson says so. A trade body that publishes the same page twice in two languages is a useful witness for the same reason as in the last lesson: you can cross-examine it.

The seven steps

Both editions of the institute's cellar page run the same sequence.

One. The crush. After the harvest the berries are crushed and the Maische (MY-shuh) results. The glossary defines it in three words: Gequetschte oder gemahlene Trauben, crushed or milled grapes. Everything that follows is a question about what to do with that mash and for how long.

Two. Destemming, for some varieties. The German text reads:

Quality-conscious growers destem before pressing, for some varieties. The English edition renders it "Winemakers seeking quality may de-stem some varieties before pressing". The glossary, under Abbeeren (AP-bay-ren), gives the reason: to keep the tannins of the stems and the stalk frame out of the wine. It offers Entrappen and Rebeln as synonyms, which is worth knowing, because three German words for one operation is what a cellar vocabulary looks like.

Three. Press early, or do not. For white and rosé wines the mash is pressed after only a short standing time, and such wines are then called hellgekeltert (HELL-guh-kel-tert), pressed pale. The opposite operation, Rotkeltern, ferments or warms the mash first. This is the hinge of the whole lesson. Two words, and between them sit four of the styles below.

Four. The must, and what is in it. Pressing yields the Most (MOST), which still carries its Trubstoffe (TROOP-shtof-uh). The glossary defines these as the solid components of musts and of wines not yet ready for bottling: yeasts, fragments of skin, pips, proteins and micro-organisms.

Five. Fermentation. In cask or in tank, started by Hefen (HAY-fen), yeasts, which are a natural part of the grapes and of the juice. Fruit sugar becomes alcohol and carbon dioxide. The institute then adds the practical caveat:

The naturally present yeasts are often not enough to get the fermentation going, so growers add Reinzuchthefen (RINE-tsookht-hay-fen). The glossary describes a Reinzuchthefe as a dried yeast obtained by selection, added to the must to support the yeasts already there so that fermentation begins at once.

Six. The Abstich.

When fermentation ends the yeast settles as a Depot on the floor of the vessel, and the clearing wine is drawn carefully off it. That is the Abstich (AP-shtikh), racking. In many cases the wine is then sulphured against oxidation.

Seven. Filtration and bottling. The institute puts the filtration at "in ein bis zwei Schritten", one to two steps, and then the wine goes into bottle. Note a small inconsistency here for later: the glossary's own entry for Filtration describes the clarification of the must by filters, where the cellar page filters the wine after racking. This lesson follows the cellar page, because it is describing a sequence and the glossary is not.

The one number that explains the rest

Buried in the middle of that page is the single most load-bearing fact in this lesson.

In principle the wine yeast could convert all of the sugar into alcohol. But from a content of 12 to 15 percent the yeast is, in the institute's own quotation marks, exhausted, and the fermentation is over. The English edition carries it identically.

Hold that against what you already know about German must weights from The Quality Pyramid, and a great deal falls into place at once. A must with more sugar in it than the yeast can survive converting does not have the option of fermenting dry. The sweetness is not, in that case, a stylistic flourish added at the end. It is what is left when the yeast stops.

The institute then names the modern lever. Fermentation is controlled "vor allem durch die Erwärmung oder die Kühlung von Tanks oder Fässern", above all by warming or cooling tanks and casks, and this makes it possible not to ferment the wine right out but to keep some of the fruit sugar in it. Read that carefully: the claim is that temperature control makes the outcome possible. The institute does not say that this is how any named German style is produced.

Süssreserve

There is a third route to a sweet wine and it is the one that no other lesson in this module touches. The glossary defines it in a single sentence:

Süssreserve (ZOOS-ray-zair-vuh) is unfermented grape must, put into sterile storage directly after pressing and used later to sweeten wines that have fermented right out.

Two moments in one definition, and both matter. It is taken off at the press, before the yeast can touch it, which is why it is still must and not syrup. And it goes back in at the other end of the process, into a wine that has already finished. A wine sweetened this way was never stopped, never chilled, never fought over. It was fermented dry and then had grape must added back to it.

Set the three mechanisms side by side and the vocabulary sorts itself out. Exhaustion is what the yeast does on its own at 12 to 15 percent alcohol. Temperature is what the cellar does to the yeast. Süssreserve is what the cellar does after the yeast has gone. The institute gives residual sugar in the noble sweet wines of the highest Prädikat levels, the Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein, as running up to 200 grams per litre, which is its figure for what is achievable rather than a legal limit.

The vessel question

The institute is refreshingly undogmatic about containers. Alongside the traditional large wooden cask the grower has stainless steel and "das populäre Barrique-Fass"; the English edition heads the paragraph "In the cellar, opinions differ" and calls the barrique a more recent trend. Its English edition also dates the arrival of stainless steel only relatively, as an evolution of more than thirty years ago, and since the page carries no publication date that phrase cannot honestly be turned into a year.

What the page does give precisely is the capacity ladder, and it is worth memorising because the names are opaque and the arithmetic is not.

Cask	Capacity
Barrique	225 l
Tonneau	500 l
Halbstückfass	600 l
Stückfass	1,200 l
Doppelstückfass	2,400 l

The German sentence is compact enough to learn whole: "Barriques fassen 225l, Tonneaus 500l und Stückfässer 1.200l. Halbstückfässer fassen dementsprechend 600l und Doppelstückfässer 2.400l." Half of a Stückfass and twice a Stückfass, exactly as the prefixes say. One warning on the English edition: it translates Stückfässer (SHTOOK-fess-er) word for word into an English phrase that is not a wine term at all. Keep the German.

The Barrique (bah-REEK) gets a fuller entry in the glossary, and it is the most exam-usable material in this section.

An oak cask of the traditional French measure of about 225 litres. It is used

for wine and also for whisky and beer.

"Ursprünglich war das relativ kleine Barrique ein reines Transportfass."

Originally it was a pure transport cask. The prestige is a later acquisition.

Newly made casks are charred inside in order to bend the staves, and that

charred layer is what produces the pronounced vanilla aroma.

Unlike a large wooden cask, a barrique gives tannins to the wine.
All wines aged in wood undergo "ein gewisses Maß an Oxidation", a certain

degree of oxidation.

And the fact that follows from all of it: **"Barriques werden höchstens drei

Jahre benutzt und dann ausgemustert, weil sie nach längerer Benutzung keine Tannine mehr an den Wein abgeben."** A barrique is used for at most three years and then retired, because after longer use it no longer gives the wine any tannin.

That last point is the one to carry. A barrique is not a container that happens to be wooden. It is a consumable ingredient with a service life, and the institute gives a reason for the service life ending: the cask has no more tannin to give.

The institute's own conclusion on the whole question is the best line on the page:

In the end it is not the container that decides the quality of a wine but the ability of the cellar master to handle it properly. The English edition extends the thought and adds a line of its own that is worth keeping: a winegrower, it says, has three professions, as winegrower, as cellar master and more recently also as a merchant.

What a cellar is allowed to do

Weingesetz section 13 paragraph 1 states the rule that governs everything else in this lesson, and it is the opposite of most people's intuition:

Applying treatment processes and adding substances are permitted only so far as authorised by ordinance under the Act or regulated by EU legal acts. This is a closed list. The question is never whether something has been banned; it is whether it has been positively allowed. A technique nobody has thought to legislate for is forbidden by default.

Paragraph 2 then carves out the obvious practical exception. Unintended and technically unavoidable carry-over of a non-permitted substance from vessels, equipment, hoses and other objects used for processing, filling, closing or storing is not an addition within the meaning of the Act, provided the amounts are harmlessly small in terms of health, taste and smell. Without that paragraph every hose in Germany would be an offence.

Paragraph 6 is the one to remember. In a year with "außergewöhnlichen Witterungsverhältnissen", exceptional weather conditions, the competent authority may, by Allgemeinverfügung (ALL-guh-mine-fair-FOO-goong), a general order, permit the acidification of fresh grapes, grape must, partly fermented grape must, new wine and wine, under conditions the statute takes from an annex to Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013.

Two things follow. Acidification is not a standing right, and the trigger is the weather of a particular year rather than anything about the wine or the producer. And it is granted region by region, by the authority for that area, so one German producer may have it in a vintage while another does not.

The treatments themselves

The institute's glossary defines the permitted operations individually. These are the ones worth knowing by name.

Schönung (SHUR-noong), fining: the clarification and stabilisation of

musts and wines by adding a fining agent, "wie z. B. Bentonit zur Ausfällung von Trubstoffen oder Bitterstoffen", for example bentonite to precipitate solids or bitter compounds.

Bentonit: a swelling clay mineral, used as a fining agent to take

protein out of must or wine and so prevent hazes.

Gelatine: a fining agent used for tannin precipitation and clarification.
Schwefeldioxid, sulphur dioxide: a treatment agent that prevents

oxidation, inhibits micro-organisms and binds unwanted fermentation by-products. The glossary adds that it is "in der Anwendungsmenge durch gesetzliche Regelungen begrenzt", limited in dose by statute, without saying what the limit is.

Sulfite, sulphites: salts of sulphurous acid. The statement *Enthält

Sulfite* or Enthält Schwefeldioxid is a mandatory label particular.

Entsäuerung (ent-ZOY-er-oong), deacidification: reducing the acid content

of must or young wine by various cellar processes, for example by adding kohlensaurer Kalk, calcium carbonate.

Biologischer Säureabbau (bee-oh-LOH-gish-er ZOY-ruh-ap-bow), abbreviated

BSA: the conversion of malic acid into lactic acid and carbon dioxide by lactic acid bacteria. The glossary itself gives malolaktische Gärung and Milchsäuregärung as synonyms, so the equivalence with malolactic fermentation is the institute's own.

Anreicherung, enrichment: raising the natural alcohol content by adding

sugar before the end of fermentation, permitted for Deutscher Wein, Landwein and Qualitätswein. The glossary gives Chaptalisation as the synonym. What enrichment is barred from, and why, belongs to The Quality Pyramid.

Rektifiziertes Traubenmostkonzentrat, RTK: concentrated grape must

from which the non-sugar substances have been removed by distillation and precipitation, and which the glossary calls "erlaubtes Mittel zur Anreicherung", a permitted means of enrichment.

Mostkonzentration: raising the alcohol content by taking water out

rather than by putting sugar in.

Three of those terms, together with the Süssreserve of the earlier section, do very similar-sounding things and are worth pinning apart before an exam. Enrichment adds sugar before fermentation ends, to raise alcohol. RTK is named as a permitted means of doing it. Must concentration reaches the same end by removing water instead. Süssreserve alone adds sweetness rather than strength, and it does so after the fermentation is over.

Six things the glossary names, three of which are faults

The same glossary names the faults, and it is careful about which of them is a fault at all. Three of the six below are not.

Böckser (BURK-ser): traced to a sulphur-containing compound with a

strong and unpleasant smell.

Korkgeschmack (KORK-guh-shmak), also headed Korkschmecker: caused by

defective corks or by moulds, musty and mouldy in smell. The trigger substance is named as Trichloranisol.

Untypische Alterungsnote, UTA: an aroma the glossary compares to

floor polish, wet wool or mothballs.

Firne (FEER-nuh): an ageing note that appears only after longer bottle

storage. Notice that the glossary does not call this one a fault. It is a characteristic of age.

Acetaldehyd, also Ethanal: a by-product of fermentation and a precursor

of alcohol.

Glycerin: a trihydric alcohol arising as a fermentation by-product,

produced above all by wild yeasts.

How many types of wine are there?

The German Wine Institute answers this question three times and gives three different answers.

Three. Its Weinarten (VINE-ar-ten) page opens: "Es gibt drei Weinarten, die sich über ihre Farben definieren", there are three wine types, defined by their colours. The body is more specific still: "Das Weinrecht unterscheidet bei den Qualitätsweinen drei Weinarten, Weiß- Rot- und Roséwein." The English edition agrees: "Wine law classifies three types of quality wine - white, red and rosé."

Four. The glossary entries for Rotling and for Rosé and Roséwein each open with the words "Eine der vier Weinarten", one of the four wine types. On this count the Rotling is a category in its own right rather than a kind of rosé.

A fourth colour, and a different one. The institute's English orange wine page says that "The German Wine Institute (DWI) provides information about the 'fourth' wine color." Its German counterpart does not say this.

The honest resolution is not to choose. The legal count is three, because that is what the institute attributes to wine law. The glossary's fourth is the Rotling. And orange is a colour rather than a Weinart, because the institute's own glossary calls it a "gesetzlich nicht definierte Bezeichnung", a designation not defined in law, and something undefined in law cannot be one of the categories that wine law distinguishes.

How each colour is actually made

Whatever the type, the grapes are usually destemmed after the harvest and the berries crushed to a mash. What happens next is the entire difference.

White. The mash is pressed directly, or after a short standing time.
Red. The mash is fermented, or briefly heated, before pressing, which

releases the colour pigments from the berry skins.

Rosé. The mash of red grapes stands "nur wenige Stunden oder über Nacht",

only a few hours or overnight, before pressing, so only a little colour passes into the must.

The glossary supplies the two named red techniques and, in the first of them, the mechanism.

Maischegärung (MY-shuh-gair-oong), mash fermentation: the mash is fermented and the alcohol that results is what dissolves the pigments out of the skins. That is why colour extraction and fermentation happen together in a red wine rather than one before the other. Maischeerhitzung (MY-shuh-air-HIT-tsoong), mash heating, gets the pigments out of the skins with heat instead, and so does not need the alcohol at all.

One figure from the Weinarten page is worth carrying: in 2022, 13 percent of all German Qualitäts- und Prädikatsweine were rosés.

Blanc de Noir

Press gently enough, and a red grape gives a white wine.

The institute's literal translation is "Weißer aus schwarzen", white from black. It is possible because a red berry as a rule has pale flesh: the red pigment, the Anthocyane (an-toh-tsoo-AH-nuh), sits above all in the berry skins. If the juice is to stay white then no colourant may cross from the skins into the must, so the grapes, as healthy as possible, are pressed only gently. The pale must is then fermented into a white wine. A typical Blanc de Noir is pale, and can show yellow-gold reflections. Both editions name Merlot and Spätburgunder as varieties used.

Then comes the sentence that does the most work in the whole section. Leave the crushed red berries in the pressed juice a little longer, which the trade calls a longer Maischestandzeit (MY-shuh-shtant-tsite), and more colour crosses over, and a rosé results.

That is the cleanest statement in the material read for this lesson of what separates the two styles. Not the grape, not the press, not the region. The clock.

The side effect

Draw the pale must off before the mash fermentation and the ratio of the skins, which hold the pigment and the tannin, to the juice changes. What is left behind makes a more complex and more colour-intense red wine. The arithmetic is the whole of it: take juice away, and the skins that remain have less liquid to colour and to season.

The institute presents this as a positive side effect rather than as the purpose of the exercise, and it is worth noting that the two editions describe the remaining liquid slightly differently. The German speaks only of the juice in the mash; the English adds the phrase "the remaining pressed juice".

What the law says, twice

Since the tenth Act amending the Weingesetz came into force in January 2021, the designations "Blanc de Noirs" and "Blanc de Noir" may be used for domestic products only in defined cases. The institute states the rule twice on one page and the two statements are not the same rule.

Its body text gives a list with several limbs:

Its FAQ box, on the same page, gives a narrower one:

The protected geographical indication limbs have gone, and a 100 percent requirement has appeared that was not in the body text. The English edition follows the narrower shape: "domestic wine, sparkling wine, quality sparkling wine or semi-sparkling wine if it is a product with a protected designation of origin (PDO)". And the facts strip on both editions gives simply "100 % rote Trauben" and the year 2021.

Learn both statements rather than reconciling them. The institute's own glossary takes a third and shorter route: "Blanc de Noir ist die weinrechtlich definierte Bezeichnung für einen Wein, der aus Rotweintrauben hergestellt wird und eine weißweinähnliche Farbe aufweist." It is the only one of the three that says plainly that the term is defined in wine law, and it declines to say how.

The English edition adds one thing its German counterpart does not: that this form of winemaking has its origins in France, where the red grapes of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier have always been processed into white wines as the basis for champagne.

Rosé, Weissherbst, Rotling

Rosé

The red berries are lightly crushed at first. The mash is left to rest a little so that the colour pigments have time to pass from the berry skin into the juice. Once the juice has reached the desired colour intensity the mash is pressed and the rosé-coloured must fermented into wine.

There are no special grape varieties for rosé. The institute is explicit in both editions: "im Grunde genommen eignen sich alle roten Rebsorten für die Roséweinbereitung", basically all red varieties are suitable. A rosé is a method and not a grape.

Two share figures appear in the institute's material and they are not the same figure. Its rosé page gives 12 percent as rosé's share of the wines sold in Germany. Its Weinarten page gives 13 percent as the rosé share of German Qualitäts- und Prädikatsweine in 2022. Different denominators and different years. Anyone quoting them as one number that moved by a point is quoting a number that does not exist.

The rosé page adds an ideal drinking temperature of 9 to 13 °C, and records that in 2020 the institute presented award-winning rosé wines at ProWein.

Weissherbst

Not every pink German wine is called Rosé. Weissherbst (VICE-hairpst) appears on labels too, and the difference is a rule rather than a style: because a Weissherbst, unlike a rosé, is always pressed from a single variety, the variety must always be named on the label. The English edition adds a judgment its German counterpart does not make, that "the term Rosé is more recognized internationally".

The glossary then supplies the two facts neither page carries, and they are the exam-grade ones:

A designation permitted only in Germany, for a rosé that must be at least a Qualitätswein and made from a single variety. The glossary's Rosé entry adds that "Eine Unterart des Rosés ist der Weißherbst", Weissherbst is a sub-type of rosé, which settles the relationship between the two terms.

Rotling

A Rotling (ROTE-ling) is not a rosé. The glossary lists it as a wine type in its own right. The Weinarten pages define it as arising "durch die gemeinsame Kelterung von Rotwein- und Weißweintrauben", by the joint pressing of red and white grapes. The glossary goes wider: "hergestellt aus dem Gemisch von roten und weißen Trauben oder Maische, die gemeinsam gepresst werden", from a mixture of red and white grapes or mash, pressed together.

Either way the point is the same and it is a point about timing again. In a Rotling the two colours meet before the press.

Three regional Rotlinge have names of their own.

Schillerwein, "ein traditioneller Rotling aus dem Anbaugebiet

Württemberg". No particular varieties are prescribed for it: "Für seine Herstellung sind keine besonderen Rebsorten vorgeschrieben."

Badisch Rotgold, "ein spezieller Rotling aus Baden, der ausschließlich aus

Grauburgunder- und Spätburgundertrauben bereitet wird", made exclusively from Grauburgunder and Spätburgunder.

Schieler, "ein regionaltypischer Rotling aus Sachsen".

One prescribes nothing, one prescribes two varieties exactly, and the third the institute describes only by its region. And here the editions part company again: the English rosé page names only Schillerwein and Badisch Rotgold and omits Schieler altogether, as do the Weinarten pages in both languages. Only the German rosé page and the glossary carry all three.

Orange wine

The name comes from the colour, orange to amber, and the colour comes from Maischegärung carried much further than a white wine would ordinarily take it: weeks to months of contact with the tannin-bearing skins and pips, from which more tannin and more pigment are extracted than is usual in a white. The wines are stored until they are fully fermented and microbiologically stable and then bottled "unbehandelt und unfiltriert", untreated and unfiltered.

The result is complex and full-bodied with a tannin-marked texture. The clear fruit and the brilliance typical of a white wine are barely present; earthy, spicy and oxidative notes predominate, notes that the institute says sometimes recall cloudy apple juice or cocoa powder. Its English edition adds walnuts to that list, and the honest observation that "It can be hard to recognize the familiar character of a grape variety."

The movement goes back to the ancient practice of ageing wine in underground clay amphorae, traceable in Georgia to antiquity and preserved there to this day. The institute dates the return precisely: "Ende der 90er Jahre wurde sie im westlichen Europa wiederentdeckt und verbreitete sich über Italien in die gesamte Weinwelt." Rediscovered in western Europe at the end of the 1990s, and spread from there through Italy into the whole wine world.

The vessels have a name and a capacity:

Qvevri (KVEV-ree), as a rule holding up to 2,000 litres, buried in the ground up to the mouth, which cools the wine naturally and protects it from oxidation, while the fine-pored clay lets it mature gently and slowly. The English edition spells the word two ways on one page, "Quevris" in its history paragraph and Qvevri in its FAQ; the German page and both FAQs use Qvevri.

The English edition is considerably more forthcoming than the German about what the category actually involves.

Market significance "has so far been very low", and it is "a polarizing type

of wine".

After the mash fermentation "the grapes are then often not pressed until weeks

or months later".

It need not be made in clay at all. Steel tanks and wooden barrels will do:

"Common to all is the long maceration time which shapes the character of the wine more than the storage container."

The wines are pumped as little as possible or not at all.
"The use of sulfur as a preservative is also avoided as far as possible,

sometimes completely."

Many orange wines come from organic or biodynamic cultivation, "but this is

not a requirement".

And the risk, stated plainly: leaving the wine to itself for months "can

quickly lead to off-flavours".

Set that last point against the sulphur point and the whole category comes into focus. A wine deliberately made without the two things the cellar chapter of this lesson spends most of its time on, sulphur and filtration, is a wine with fewer defences, and the institute's own page says what that costs.

Federweisser

Most wine categories are defined by what has been done to them. This one is defined by how far through its own fermentation it has got.

Federweisser (FAY-der-vice-er) is fermenting must with an actual alcohol content of more than 1 percent by volume and less than three fifths of its total alcohol content. No fixed strength appears anywhere in it. The same tank enters the category when the first percent has been made and leaves it when three fifths of the eventual total has, which is a definition of a moving thing rather than of a product.

The institute's own recommended point is narrower than the legal window and much easier to remember:

Halfway from grape juice to wine, where sweetness, alcohol and fruit acid are in good balance, at about 5 percent by volume.

The name comes from the yeasts, "die wie winzige Federchen im Glas tanzen", which dance in the glass like tiny feathers, and which are also responsible for the young wine's light prickle. The German page gives four regional names, "Rauscher, Sauser, Bitzler oder Brauser"; the English edition gives three and drops Bitzler. Varieties named on both include Spätburgunder, Riesling, Scheurebe and Silvaner.

Because it is still fermenting, it has to be handled like something that is still fermenting. Carbon dioxide forms continuously, so the bottle must always be transported upright, and the English edition adds that it should always be sealed with a closure permeable to air so that the carbonic acid can escape. The German FAQ supplies the consequence of getting this wrong in four words: "Anderenfalls könnte der Behälter platzen", otherwise the container could burst.

Steering it is a matter of temperature, and the instruction is usable in a domestic kitchen. Taste it. If it is right, into the refrigerator, "denn Kälte stoppt den Gärungsprozess", because cold stops the fermentation process. If it is still too sweet, leave it at room temperature and taste again after six to eight hours.

About two million litres are sold each year in Rhineland-Palatinate, on the institute's figure. The English edition confirms the same number in the same form. Note the verb: sold, not made.

Sekt

The pressure ladder

Three categories, distinguished by how much pressure is in the bottle and where that pressure came from. The Perlwein row comes from the institute's Secco page, which is also the page impeached on the Sekt figure a few paragraphs below.

Category	Pressure	Where the carbon dioxide comes from
Perlwein	1 to 2.5 bar	may also be added
Schaumwein	at least 3 bar	the generic term for foaming wines with perlage
Sekt	at least 3.5 bar	"dessen Kohlensäure bei der Gärung entsteht"

The German is worth learning whole: "Schaumwein ist der Oberbegriff für moussierende, d.h. schäumende Weine mit Perlage, mit einem Mindestdruck von 3 bar. Sekt ist Schaumwein, dessen Kohlensäure bei der Gärung entsteht und mindestens 3,5 bar Innendruck erzeugt." The English edition gives the ceiling: at least 3.5 bar, "up to 6 bar can be achieved".

And here the institute contradicts itself. Its Secco page writes "Sekt mindestens 3 und bis zu 6 bar", which has taken the Schaumwein figure and attached it to Sekt. The glossary sides with 3.5, defining a Sekt as a product obtained by a first or a second fermentation, with an overpressure of at least 3.5 bar in the closed container and an actual alcohol content of 10 percent by volume. That alcohol figure appears in none of the other material read for this lesson and is worth carrying.

The bottle

Base wines, Grundweine (GROONT-vine-uh), are fermented a second time by adding sugar and yeast. For a Winzersekt (VIN-tser-zekt) this is done by traditional bottle fermentation. The English edition adds a detail about the yeast that is easy to overlook: it is "a special kind of yeast, able to withstand great pressure".

It also explains a piece of German label wording that otherwise looks like modesty:

The German edition does not say this. Traditionelle Flaschengärung on a German label is therefore not a lesser claim than the French phrase. It is the same claim, made in the only words available.

Nine months, four weeks, one freezing bath

At least nine months on the lees, sometimes years, in a dark, cool cellar. Then the bottles go neck-down into Rüttelpulte (ROOT-tel-pool-tuh), riddling desks, and are turned daily for four weeks while being raised steadily steeper, until the yeast has collected entirely in the neck. The necks are dipped in a Kältebad (KELT-uh-baht), a freezing bath, so that the yeast freezes, and when the bottle is opened the pressure of the carbon dioxide throws the frozen plug out. That is Degorgieren (day-gor-ZHEE-ren), disgorging.

The duration is another place where the institute disagrees with itself. Its glossary entry for Rütteln (ROOT-teln) describes the same operation over "im Verlauf von zwei bis drei Wochen", two to three weeks, with the bottles briefly shaken at each turn. Four weeks on the Sekt page, two to three in the glossary, and no way to reconcile them from the published material.

The vocabulary around it

Cuvée: a blend of grapes, musts or finished wines, and specifically the

blend of different Sekt base wines "zur Schaffung eines gleich bleibenden Geschmacksbildes", to create a consistent taste picture.

Flaschengärung (FLASH-en-gair-oong): traditional or classic bottle

fermentation, in which the base wine is fermented a second time in the bottle.

Agraffe (ah-GRAF-fuh): the small wire cage, the French muselet,

wrapped round the cork and fixed to the neck so that the relatively large overpressure cannot catapult the cork out.

Versanddosage (fair-ZANT-doh-zah-zhuh): "In Wein gelöster Zucker, der

zur Süßung des Sektes verwendet wird", sugar dissolved in wine and used to sweeten the Sekt.

Tankgärung, also Grossraumgärung (GROHS-rowm-gair-oong): the

designation for a Sekt whose second fermentation is carried out in a larger pressure tank. The glossary lists the two words as synonyms of one another.

Transvasierverfahren (trans-vah-ZEER-fair-fah-ren): "Verfahren zur

Herstellung von Sekt, bei dem der Sekt nach der Vergärung in der Flasche in einen Tank umgefüllt wird", the transfer method, in which the Sekt ferments in the bottle and is then decanted into a tank.

Three routes, then. The second fermentation can happen in the bottle the wine is sold in, in a bottle it is later emptied out of, or in a tank.

Winzersekt, as the statute has it

Weinverordnung section 34a paragraph 3 allows a Sekt b.A. to be placed on the market as Winzersekt only if all four of the following are met.

1. The fruit. It is made from a wine suitable for Qualitätswein, from grapes harvested in the same holding in which the producer within the meaning of Article 46(1)(c) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33 carries out the processing of the grapes into wine. Where a producers' association is the maker, the grapes may come from the member holdings. 2. The method. It is made by the process of traditional, classic bottle fermentation, which the statute then spells out: by a second alcoholic fermentation in the bottle; stored on its lees "vom Zeitpunkt der Bereitung der Cuvée an mindestens neun Monate lang ununterbrochen in demselben Betrieb"; and separated from its lees by Degorgieren. 3. The label. It names the holding or the producers' association, the grape variety and the vintage. 4. The marketing. It is marketed by the maker, in the presentation prescribed by section 33a paragraph 2.

Requirement 2 rewards slow reading, because three separate conditions hide inside one clause. The nine months runs from the preparation of the cuvée, not from the start of the second fermentation. It must be uninterrupted. And it must be in the same establishment, which rules out shipping the bottles elsewhere to mature. The institute's own page says only that the Sekt "ruht und reift mindestens neun Monate auf seiner Hefe". The statute is a good deal stricter than its summary, and that gap is exactly the sort of thing an exam question is made of.

Notice also what requirement 2 excludes without naming it. Tank fermentation and the transfer method are both defined in the institute's glossary, and neither appears anywhere in section 34a. They are shut out by the positive requirement of bottle fermentation, not by a prohibition.

The institute adds that about one percent of the German must harvest is processed into Winzersekt, a sentence its English edition omits. Its FAQ, in both languages, says that Rheinhessen brought the first German Winzersekte to market, "und das bereits vor über 25 Jahren", more than twenty-five years ago. The page carries no date, so that phrase is best quoted as it stands rather than converted into a year. Varieties named on both editions are Spätburgunder, Grauburgunder, Riesling and Weissburgunder.

Crémant

The same section of the Weinverordnung, at paragraphs 1 and 2, governs the term Crémant on a Sekt b.A. It may be used only if the requirements of Article 53(5) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33 are met, the name of the protected designation of origin is given, and marketing takes place in the presentation prescribed by section 33a paragraph 2. Paragraph 2 then allows the relevant product specification to lay down additional and stricter requirements for the use of "Crémant", where that is necessary to take account of regional circumstances.

The institute's popular version is that German Sekte may call themselves Crémant where they meet certain requirements as to varieties, harvest and fermentation. The German statute does not spell those requirements out itself; it points at the EU regulation for them, and at the product specification for anything stricter.

How sweet is a Sekt

Term	Residual sugar
brut nature	0 to 3 g/l
extra brut	0 to 6 g/l
brut	0 to 12 g/l
extra trocken, extra dry	12 to 17 g/l
trocken, dry	17 to 32 g/l
halbtrocken, semi-dry	32 to 50 g/l
mild	over 50 g/l

Two features of this ladder catch people out. The first three bands all begin at zero, so they are ceilings rather than ranges, and a Sekt at 2 grams per litre could lawfully be labelled any of the three. And extra trocken sits above brut, so a bottle labelled extra dry is sweeter than one labelled brut, despite sounding drier in both languages.

Two statutory oddities

Both of these are small and both are the kind of thing that decides a question.

A Sekt b.A. need not be made in the region it names. Weingesetz section 17 paragraph 2 number 1 is the enabling provision, and Weinverordnung section 19 sets the conditions: a Qualitätswein, Prädikatswein, Sekt b.A., Qualitätsperlwein b.A. or Qualitätslikörwein b.A. may be produced in an area other than the specified region in which the grapes were harvested and which appears on the label, provided that the area of production lies in the same Land or in a neighbouring Land, and that Article 5(1)(b) of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33 is complied with. The name on the bottle is a statement about where the fruit grew, not about where the cellar stood.

A Landwein region name may be used for a Qualitätsschaumwein. Weingesetz section 24a is one sentence long and can be quoted in full: "Der Name eines Landweingebietes darf auch für einen Qualitätsschaumwein verwendet werden."

Secco and Perlwein

A Perlwein is "nach dem deutschen Weingesetz als Wein definiert, der gegenüber Stillweinen einen erhöhten Überschuss an Kohlensäure besitzt", defined under German wine law as a wine with a raised excess of carbon dioxide compared with still wines. A Secco, the institute's FAQ says, is a Perlwein under that same law.

Where that carbon dioxide comes from is a question the institute answers three times, differently.

The body of its Secco page says that during the fermentation of must into

wine the carbon dioxide largely escapes, and that "für die Bereitung hochwertiger Seccos [wird] diese aufgefangen und dem Wein nach der Gärung wieder zugeführt", for the preparation of high-quality Seccos it is captured and returned to the wine after fermentation.

The FAQ box on that same page says that "Nach dem deutschen Weingesetz ist

Secco ein Perlwein mit technisch zugesetzter Kohlensäure", a Perlwein with technically added carbon dioxide.

The glossary, under both Secco and Perlwein, says "Schäumender Wein mit

meist zugesetzter Kohlensäure", mostly added.

Only the English edition supplies something that settles the matter in practice, and it does so by looking at the label rather than the cellar: "If CO2 from sources other than the wine itself are added, then it must be declared as 'semi-sparkling wine with added carbon dioxide.' This carbonation method is only used in the simplest semi-sparkling wines." The same edition gives the cleanest line separating the two categories: "An important distinction between seccos and sekt, or sparkling wine, is that in the latter, the CO2 comes from a second fermentation."

Three further points about Seccos are worth carrying.

No Agraffe. "Die Verschlüsse der Seccos dürfen nicht wie beim Schaumwein

durch einen Drahtkorb (Agraffe) fixiert werden, sondern sind zumeist mit Drehverschluss oder einem Korken mit einer darüber befindlichen Schrumpffolie verschlossen." A Secco may not use the wire cage. It takes a screw cap, or a cork under a Schrumpffolie, a shrink sleeve. The English edition renders that last as "a cork with foil or string", and there is no string in the German.

No Sekt tax. Good Perlweine are comparatively inexpensive "da sie nicht

der Sektsteuer unterliegen", because they are not subject to the Sekt tax. The rate for it appears nowhere in the material read for this lesson.

Secco is not Prosecco. Prosecco comes from Italy, is pressed from the

Glera variety and may be made only in the DOC Prosecco, and it exists as a sparkling, a semi-sparkling and a still wine. Secco in Germany is a Perlwein. The two words look alike and mean different things.

The drinking temperature the institute gives for a Secco is 6 to 8 °C.

Wine with the alcohol taken out

This is the one section of the lesson whose source is explicitly dated to 2025, and the category moves fast enough that the date matters.

On the institute's 2025 figures, the alcohol-free wine category found 44 percent more buyers in retail than in the previous year, with volume and value each rising by 25 percent. The value share of alcohol-free wines in the total wine market is, "nach Branchenschätzungen", by industry estimates, around 2 percent. In a survey of over 500 wine estates in 2025, every third reported having taken alcohol-free wines into its range, and the institute's wine market analysis found that in 2025 alcohol-free wines were bought repeatedly in retail by 65 percent of households. The market share of dealcoholised Sekt it puts at 7 percent.

The method is the interesting part. Alcohol-free wines are made from classically produced wines from which the alcohol is then removed. This is done gently, by vacuum distillation at relatively low temperatures of around 30 °C, or in combination with an aroma-preserving membrane technique. Carbon dioxide is then added to the alcohol-free sparkling wines.

Historically the alcohol was removed at raised temperatures, which cost the wine much of its aromatic variety, and that is the institute's explanation for why the older products were poor. The base wines chosen are often Bukettsorten (boo-KET-zor-ten), among them Sauvignon Blanc and Gewürztraminer, whose intense fruit compensates in part for the missing alcohol. Muskateller, Riesling and Scheurebe are also named.

The legal point is a labelling rule: "Laut europäischem Lebensmittelrecht dürfen Sekt, Wein oder Bier als 'alkoholfrei' bezeichnet werden, wenn der Terminus zusammen mit < 0,5 Volumenprozent (% vol.) deklariert wird." Under European food law the term alcohol-free may be used where it is declared together with under 0.5 percent by volume. The page names no regulation for this.

Two things in the bottle that are not faults, and one that is

Weinstein

Weinstein (VINE-shtine), tartrate, is the crystal that settles out in the bottle, and the institute describes it twice in two slightly different chemistries. Its glossary is the more precise: "Kaliumsalz der Weinsäure, das während und nach der Gärung bzw. in der Flasche durch Kälte ausgeschieden wird", the potassium salt of tartaric acid, thrown out by cold during and after fermentation or in the bottle. Its German page is looser, saying that tartrate arises when the minerals naturally present in the wine, "wie Kalium oder Kalzium", potassium or calcium, combine with tartaric acid, and that in dissolved form it is present in basically every wine.

Its English page is the only source read here that separates the two. The fine, almost dust-like crystals sometimes found in high-quality Auslesen, Beeren- and Trockenbeerenauslesen or ice wines, it says, are "usually not tartaric crystals in the proper sense, but natural calcium salts that have precipitated due to higher storage temperatures". Higher, not lower, which is the reverse of what the potassium mechanism would suggest.

On what tartrate means, the two editions diverge more sharply still. The German page makes a negative claim and stops there:

Harmless, tasteless, and not a sign of deficient quality. The English page makes a positive one. Crystals, it argues, are characteristic of wines rich in minerals, and are the mark of a wine that has had the benefit of long bottle ageing; and because slow cold fermentation both conserves aroma compounds and delays precipitation into the bottle, crystals "can be regarded as the mark of a good winemaker and a wine of quality". It adds that riper grapes carry higher levels of tartaric acid, and that the longer grapes ripen on the vine the longer they have to absorb minerals from the soil.

The same edition supplies the best image in the material read for this lesson: tartrate builds in layers on the walls of a cask, so that an old cask lit from within resembles an icy cave full of glistening crystals.

Depot

Tartrate is not the dark sediment found in old red wines. That is the Depot (day-POH), which the glossary defines as "ausgefällte Gerb- und Farbstoffe und evtl. Weinstein, das sich während der Flaschenlagerung bildet", precipitated tannins and pigments and possibly tartrate, formed during bottle storage. Both are unwanted in the glass and neither harms the wine. Pour slowly to leave tartrate behind in the bottle; for an old red, decant first, the English edition adds, ideally in front of a light source.

The glossary distinguishes two words for that operation, and the distinction is a real one. Dekantieren is transferring the contents of the bottle into a carafe or a decanter. Karaffieren is transferring the wine into a carafe for aeration. The Dekantieren entry is truncated on the source page and breaks off mid-phrase, so what it gives as the purpose cannot be read.

Gushing

And then the case where the harmless crystal is not harmless at all.

Tartrate offers the carbon dioxide a great many condensation nuclei. The gas is released at those points, and the bottle foams uncontrollably. That is Gushing, and it is the reason a Sekt producer worries about a crystal a still-wine producer can shrug at.

Closures

Cork

Cork's use as a stopper is recorded, the institute says, from the Greeks of the fifth century BC. Its English edition adds that the Greeks sealed their amphorae with it, and that "This knowledge was then used by Pierre Pérignon (1639 - 1715) two thousand years later when he replaced the wooden stoppers in sparkling wines with corks." The German edition does not mention him at all, and the English calls him Pierre rather than Dom.

On what a cork does, the two editions genuinely disagree, and the disagreement is the sharpest in this lesson. The German page states as settled fact that cork "ermöglicht eine dosierte Sauerstoffzufuhr, die sich - besonders bei hochwertigen Rotweinen - positiv auf die Reife des Weines auswirkt", that it permits a measured supply of oxygen with a positive effect on maturation, especially in fine red wines. The English page says the same thing and then takes it back:

One publisher, one page, two languages, and a claim asserted in the first and withdrawn in the second on the evidence of a German research institute. Treat the breathing cork as contested rather than as fact.

Cork taint both editions agree on. It is caused by micro-organisms that get into the pores of the cork during its storage, and the English edition adds, after the trees are stripped; there they produce substances that become taste-active during the subsequent sterilisation of the corks. It occurs in about 5 percent of corks and causes great economic damage. The English edition names the substance, Trichloroanisole (TCA), and gives the threshold: "Only five ppt (parts per trillion) are sufficient to produce a clearly perceptible cork taint." The glossary names the compound in its German form, Trichloranisol, and gives no threshold.

The English edition makes an argument that matters for a German cellar in particular. The problem is more serious for German white wines than for southern European wines, because in a fine fruity wine the taint is perceptible at an early stage at which an inexperienced drinker will not recognise it as taint: the fruit is only slightly covered, and the wine simply lacks its usual brilliance.

And a warning that closes the loop with the cellar. Cork taint can arise with no cork involved at all. Chlorine-containing cleaning agents react with wood, pallets for example, and the musty notes pass to closures stored on them, or to the wine through contaminated air.

The alternatives

Synthetic stoppers. "In Deutschland ist deshalb mittlerweile ein Drittel aller Flaschen mit einem Kunststoffstopfen verschlossen." Around a third of all bottles in Germany are now sealed with a synthetic closure. The English edition adds that a synthetic can conserve wine for three years or more if properly stored, which is "sufficient for the majority of wines".

Screw caps. Citing Le Figaro, the English edition reports that of the approximately 17 billion bottles of wine produced worldwide in 2008, around 2.5 billion are said to have been sold with a screw cap, against only 300 million in 2003. For Germany the estimate is around 500 million bottles a year. Screw caps were long used here mainly for simple Qualitätswein, "hence the comparatively bad image", and they are popular in the catering trade. The pioneers were Württemberg and Franken: around 80 percent of all litre bottles in those regions carry screw caps. Internationally, Australia and New Zealand have pushed the closure for years. And in 2005, at ProWein, various renowned German wineries presented wines with the Stelvin screw cap for the first time; it extends like a capsule over the neck and can be embossed.

Glass. In 2004 Alcoa, of Worms, developed a glass closure called Vinolok: a glass stopper sealed and resealable with a ring of Elvax, a material also used for mineral water closures, with an aluminium overcap in various colours to show tampering. Production grew from 2 million in 2004 to over 20 million in 2008. The institute's glossary lists it under the headword Vino-Lok and describes it as an alternative closure for wine bottles, a glass stopper with a plastic seal and an aluminium overcap.

Steel. StainlessCap was developed by the winegrower Peter Querbach of Oestrich-Winkel in the Rheingau, a patented closure in which a stainless steel crown cork is hidden beneath the capsule. The glossary's entries for Stainlesscap and Kronkork are identical to one another and add the material detail, stainless steel with a polyethylene seal. The English edition's verdict is short: "Some winemakers are using it, however, the market share is very small."

A note on where all this came from

Almost everything above is the German Wine Institute's, read in both of its editions, together with its glossary of 145 terms and five sections of the Weingesetz and the Weinverordnung read in the original at the federal government's own statute service.

Two limits on that. The English edition of the institute's site is winesofgermany.com, and the material there is not a translation of the German so much as a parallel publication: whole paragraphs exist in one language and not the other, and this lesson says which whenever it matters. And where a German statute points at an EU regulation, as section 13 paragraph 6 points at an annex to Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 and section 34a points at two articles of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33, the EU texts themselves could not be retrieved for this lesson. The references are given as the German statutes make them. What is inside them is not described here, because it was not read.

Where this module has got to

That is the Foundations module. Seven lessons that began with a map and a latitude and end with a freezing bath and a wire cage.

The through-line, if there is one, is that German wine law is unusually explicit and unusually specific, and that a surprising amount of what looks like tradition is a statutory requirement with a number attached: nine months from the cuvée, three fifths of the total alcohol, the same Land or a neighbouring one. The other through-line is that the body which promotes German wine to the world publishes its material in two languages and a glossary, and that the three do not always agree. Knowing where they part is worth as much as knowing what they say.

What comes next is regional. The module after this one goes to the Nahe, which is the right place to start, because it is the region that makes the arguments of the last two lessons visible at close range.

Exam Notes

12 to 15 percent alcohol is where the DWI says the yeast is exhausted and

fermentation ends. The single most useful number in the cellar.

The seven steps: crush to a Maische, destem for some varieties, press

(early for white and rosé, which is then hellgekeltert), must with its Trubstoffe, fermentation with natural yeasts often reinforced with Reinzuchthefen, Abstich off the yeast Depot followed by sulphuring, filtration in one to two steps, bottling.

***Süssreserve*: unfermented must, stored sterile directly after pressing,

added later to a wine that has fermented right out.** Distinguish it from RTK (enrichment), Mostkonzentration (water removed) and Versanddosage (sugar in wine, for Sekt).

Cask ladder: 225, 500, 600, 1,200, 2,400 litres. Barrique, Tonneau,

Halbstückfass, Stückfass, Doppelstückfass. A barrique is used for at most three years and then retired, because it stops giving tannin.

Weingesetz section 13 paragraph 1 is a closed list. Nothing may be done

unless it has been positively authorised. Paragraph 6: acidification by general order, in a year of exceptional weather conditions, region by region.

**Weinarten: three in wine law, four in the glossary (which adds Rotling), and

orange as a fourth colour in the English edition only. Orange Wein is a designation not defined in law**.

Colour comes from the skins. Maischegärung: the alcohol produced

dissolves the pigment. Maischeerhitzung: heat does it instead. Rosé: a few hours or overnight. Blanc de Noir: gentle pressing, the pale must drawn off before any mash fermentation.

Blanc de Noir, since January 2021. Body text and FAQ on the same DWI page

give different lists, the FAQ adding 100 percent and dropping the protected geographical indication limbs. Drawing off the pale must makes the remaining red more complex and more colour-intense.

**Weissherbst: single variety, variety named on the label, at least a

Qualitätswein, permitted only in Germany.** The last two are in the glossary alone.

Rotling: red and white grapes, or mash, pressed together. Schillerwein

(Württemberg, no varieties prescribed), Badisch Rotgold (Baden, exclusively Grauburgunder and Spätburgunder), Schieler (Sachsen).

**Federweisser: more than 1 % vol actual alcohol and less than three fifths of

total alcohol. Ideal at about 5 % vol. Transport upright. About two million litres sold** annually in Rhineland-Palatinate.

**Pressure: Perlwein 1 to 2.5 bar, Schaumwein at least 3, Sekt at least 3.5,

up to 6 achievable. The DWI's Secco page contradicts this and gives Sekt as at least 3. The glossary supports 3.5 and adds 10 % vol** actual alcohol.

Winzersekt, Weinverordnung section 34a paragraph 3, four requirements:

estate fruit; traditional bottle fermentation, second fermentation in bottle, nine months on the lees from the preparation of the cuvée, uninterrupted, in the same establishment, then Degorgieren; a label naming holding, variety and vintage; marketed by the maker.

**Riddling: four weeks on the DWI's Sekt page, two to three weeks in its

glossary.**

**Sekt sweetness: brut nature 0 to 3, extra brut 0 to 6, brut 0 to 12, extra

trocken 12 to 17, trocken 17 to 32, halbtrocken 32 to 50, mild over 50 g/l.** Extra trocken is sweeter than brut.

A Sekt b.A. may be made outside the region it names, in the same Land or a

neighbouring one (Weingesetz section 17 paragraph 2 number 1, Weinverordnung section 19). A Landwein region name may be used for a Qualitätsschaumwein (Weingesetz section 24a).

**Secco's carbon dioxide: captured and returned (page body), technically added

(same page's FAQ), mostly added (glossary). Gas from outside the wine must be declared on the label. In a Sekt it comes from a second fermentation. Perlwein is not subject to the Sekt tax**.

**Dealcoholised, 2025: under 0.5 % vol, about 2 percent of market value,

7 percent share for dealcoholised Sekt.** Vacuum distillation at around 30 °C, or an aroma-preserving membrane technique.

**Weinstein: potassium salt of tartaric acid (glossary), potassium or calcium

(German page), calcium salts at higher storage temperatures (English page). Harmless in still wine; in a Sekt it provides condensation nuclei and causes Gushing**.

**Cork: about 5 percent taint rate, five ppt of TCA enough to perceive it, a

third of German bottles under synthetic closures.** The German edition asserts a measured oxygen supply; the English cites Geisenheim denying cork breathes at all.

**Screw caps: Württemberg and Franken as pioneers, around 80 percent of litre

bottles there.** Stelvin shown at ProWein 2005. Vinolok from Alcoa of Worms, 2004. StainlessCap from Peter Querbach of Oestrich-Winkel, Rheingau.

Glossary

Maische: MY-shuh The mash. The DWI glossary defines it in three words: crushed or milled grapes. Everything that separates a white wine from a red, a rosé and an orange wine is a decision about what to do with it and for how long.
Abbeeren: AP-bay-ren Destemming. The glossary gives the reason as keeping the tannins of the stems and the stalk frame out of the wine, and lists Entrappen and Rebeln as synonyms.
Trubstoffe: TROOP-shtof-uh The solids suspended in musts and in wines not yet ready for bottling: yeasts, fragments of skin, pips, proteins and micro-organisms.
Hellgekeltert: HELL-guh-kel-tert Pressed pale. The DWI's word for the wines that result when mash is pressed after only a short standing time, which is how white and rosé wines are made. Its opposite is Rotkeltern, where the mash is fermented or warmed first.
Reinzuchthefe: RINE-tsookht-hay-fuh A cultured yeast, obtained by selection and supplied dried. The glossary describes it as added to the must to support the naturally present yeasts so that fermentation starts at once.
Abstich: AP-shtikh Racking. After fermentation the yeast settles as a Depot on the floor of the vessel and the clearing wine is drawn carefully off it. The DWI names sulphuring against oxidation as the step that in many cases follows.
Süssreserve: ZOOS-ray-zair-vuh Unfermented grape must, put into sterile storage directly after pressing and used later to sweeten wines that have fermented right out. The decisive detail is the timing: it is set aside before it can ferment, not made afterwards.
Maischegärung: MY-shuh-gair-oong Mash fermentation, the traditional route to red wine. The glossary is precise about the mechanism: the alcohol produced by the fermentation is what dissolves the pigments out of the berry skins.
Maischeerhitzung: MY-shuh-air-HIT-tsoong Mash heating. Heat releases the red pigments from the berry skins without waiting for fermentation to do it.
Maischestandzeit: MY-shuh-shtant-tsite The standing time of the mash before pressing. The DWI uses it as the single variable that turns a Blanc de Noir into a rosé: leave the crushed red berries in the juice longer and more colour crosses over.
Schönung: SHUR-noong Fining. The clarification and stabilisation of musts and wines by adding a fining agent, the glossary's example being bentonite to precipitate solids or bitter compounds.
Entsäuerung: ent-ZOY-er-oong Deacidification: reducing the acid content of must or young wine by cellar processes, for example the addition of calcium carbonate.
Biologischer Säureabbau: bee-oh-LOH-gish-er ZOY-ruh-ap-bow The conversion of malic acid into lactic acid and carbon dioxide by lactic acid bacteria. The DWI glossary gives malolaktische Gärung and Milchsäuregärung as its own synonyms, and abbreviates it BSA.
Barrique: bah-REEK An oak cask of the traditional French measure of about 225 litres. The glossary notes that it began as a pure transport cask, that charring the inside to bend the staves is what gives the wine its vanilla note, and that it is retired after at most three years.
Stückfass: SHTOOK-fass A large German cask of 1,200 litres. Half of one, the Halbstückfass, holds 600; twice one, the Doppelstückfass, holds 2,400. The institute draws the contrast the other way round: unlike a large wooden cask, a barrique gives tannin to the wine.
Böckser: BURK-ser A fault, traced by the DWI glossary to a sulphur-containing compound with a strong and unpleasant smell.
Korkgeschmack: KORK-guh-shmak Cork taint. The glossary attributes it to defective corks or to moulds, describes it as musty and mouldy, and names Trichloranisol as the trigger substance. Korkschmecker is the alternative headword.
Firne: FEER-nuh An ageing note that appears only after longer storage in bottle. Note what the glossary does not call it: it is listed as a characteristic of age, not as a fault.
Weissherbst: VICE-hairpst A rosé permitted only in Germany, which must be at least a Qualitätswein and must be made from a single variety, which is why the variety always appears on the label. The glossary calls it a sub-type of rosé.
Rotling: ROTE-ling A wine made by pressing red and white grapes, or their mash, together. The glossary lists it as a wine type of its own, alongside white, red and rosé.
Federweisser: FAY-der-vice-er Fermenting must, defined by the DWI glossary as having more than 1 percent by volume of actual alcohol and less than three fifths of its total alcohol content. A stage of a process rather than a fixed strength.
Grundwein: GROONT-vine The base wine, which the glossary calls simply the starting product in Sekt production.
Winzersekt: VIN-tser-zekt A Sekt b.A. that meets all four requirements of Weinverordnung section 34a paragraph 3: estate fruit, traditional bottle fermentation with at least nine months on the lees, a label naming holding, variety and vintage, and marketing by the maker.
Rütteln: ROOT-teln Riddling. The bottles stand neck-down in a trapezoidal desk and are turned, shaken briefly and raised steeper each day until the yeast has slid into the neck. The DWI's Sekt page puts this at four weeks and its glossary at two to three.
Degorgieren: day-gor-ZHEE-ren Disgorging, which the glossary defines as the removal of the yeast from fermented sparkling wine in the traditional bottle fermentation. The necks are dipped in a freezing bath and the pressure inside throws the frozen plug out.
Agraffe: ah-GRAF-fuh The wire cage, French muselet, wrapped round the cork and fixed to the neck so that the overpressure cannot catapult the cork out. A Secco may not use one.
Versanddosage: fair-ZANT-doh-zah-zhuh Sugar dissolved in wine, used to sweeten the Sekt. The institute's glossary gives that one sentence and no more, neither the moment it goes in nor the quantity.
Transvasierverfahren: trans-vah-ZEER-fair-fah-ren The transfer method: the Sekt ferments in the bottle and is then decanted into a tank. A third route alongside bottle fermentation and Tankgärung, and one that a Winzersekt may not take.
Weinstein: VINE-shtine Tartrate. The glossary defines it as the potassium salt of tartaric acid, thrown out by cold during and after fermentation or in the bottle. Harmless in a still wine and a genuine problem in a sparkling one.
Qvevri: KVEV-ree The Georgian clay vessel, holding as a rule up to 2,000 litres and buried in the ground to its mouth, which cools the wine naturally and protects it from oxidation. The DWI adds that the fine-pored clay lets the wine mature gently and slowly.