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+--- Thread: I know 5 German words now! (/thread-19183.html)
- RyanH - 07-31-2006
Which is great, but it has caused me some confusion. People who are just forming an interest in wine very frequently like to get started with sweeter wines as opposed to dry ones. When they ask for what to try, the German whites are almost always mentioned. In my reading, I discovered that there are 5 distinct categories of German QmP wines: Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese (and Eiswein, a.k.a. ice wine, seems to get included at this level), and finally Trockenbeerenauslese.
Following are translations of those 5 terms, and here's where I get confused...
Kabinett - cabinet (referencing cellared wines in cabinets where the best bottles would be locked up.)
Spätlese - late harvest
Auslese - select harvest
Beeren - berries
Trocken - dry
Now from my limited experience, Spatlese, Auslese, and Beerenauslese are all definitely sweeter wines. I have yet to try a Trockenbeerenauslese yet though, so I wonder... is this highest level of German QmP wine, in fact, dry? Or is the name missleading?
And if it is dry, can that be true of the other 4 levels? Is it just sheer dumb luck that the Spatlese, Auslese, and Beerenauslese wines I've tried were all fairly sweet? I'd hate to tell a friend that wants a non-dry wine to get herself a nice bottle of Auslese and find out that they happened to pick a super dry wine by chance.
- VouvrayHead - 07-31-2006
Trockenbeerenausele (TBA)
is the sweetest of the bunch.
I always found that "Trocken" misleading, too.
Hopefully some german linguist on this board will clarify for us!
There are varying degrees of sweetness in the lower levels, but in general it's from dry to sweetest:
QBA (not under QMP governance-- can be drier or sweet, like Dragonstone for instance)
Kabinett
Spatlese
Auslese
Beerenauslese
Eiswein
Trockenbeerenausele.
I've never had a dry Auslese, so that should be safe to recommend.
The last two, typically expensive and requiring bottle age, are both full-bore desert wines, but are made very differently.
Eiswein is made when the grapes are frozen on the vine. The liquid that remains unfrozen is much more saturated by sugar, so when carefully pressed, that sweet syrup is what comes out.
TBA, on the other hand, is picked shrivelled on the vine, hopefully infected with a fungus called Botrytis. The French, ever so poetic, call it noble rot in their language. The fungus sucks out the water, leaving the same sugary syrup left. Quite romantic. Because of the different sugar concentration methods, they can taste pretty different.
By the way, Canada makes some fantastic Eiswein, and can be a bit more affordable.
Mission Hill is a good one that's around $18 for a 1/4 bottle. Expensive by the ounce, but a 1/4 bottle is all 2 people need... [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]
Frustratingly, noone in my state of Wisconsin has figured out how to make it well yet... And Mount Pleasant in my old Southern home of Missouri could. Go figure [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/frown.gif[/img]
[This message has been edited by VouvrayHead (edited 07-31-2006).]
- RyanH - 08-01-2006
Awesome! Thank you for the clearification! I have only one question... you said:
"The last two, typically expensive and requiring bottle age, are both full-bore desert wines, "
I thought I read that a dessert wine by definition has 14% or greater alcohol content. Also, I'm almost possitive the TBA I looked at last week at my local BevMo was only 8%. So... am I wrong about the definition of a dessert wine, or is the term used more losely, also refering simply to a very sweet wine that would go well with desert?
- Innkeeper - 08-01-2006
Dessert wines are determined by sweetness, not necessarily by alcoholic content, although sometimes they go hand in hand. If grapes are very, very sweet and you just fermented them a little, you will end up with a dessert wine with low alcohol.
- Thomas - 08-01-2006
The "Trocken" in Trockenbeerenauslese refers to the state of the grapes on the vine--which are dried berries (trockenbeeren) with intense sweetness and acidity.
In fact, all the terms for German wines refer to the state of the grapes at harvest and not to the sweetness in the wine. There are indeed dry Auslese wines--not many, but they do exist.
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 08-01-2006).]
- wondersofwine - 08-01-2006
Foodie beat me to it with the explanation of Trockenbeerenauslese (dried up berries selectively picked) and you can have a dry Spatlese (or occasionally an Auslese) but it will usually say Trocken (dry) on the bottle. You may also see Halb Trocken (half dry or slightly sweet) I love Eiswein which can combine the concentrated sweetness of grapes harvested as late as November with an acid backbone to keep the wine from being cloying. The cool climate of Germany or Canada allows for the phenomenon.
- Thomas - 08-01-2006
WOW, they often pick much later than November, after the grapes have been encased in ice.
- RyanH - 08-01-2006
Wow, I'm glad I remembered to ask this. All this knowledge, and best of all... it's free!
I gotta say though, I feel a bit slow for not thinking of dry referring to the grape as opposed to the wine. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/tongue.gif[/img] Makes perfect sence now.
[This message has been edited by RyanH (edited 08-01-2006).]
- VouvrayHead - 08-01-2006
heh... same here [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]
makes such perfect sense, yet i was puzzled! [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]
Foodie-- what does dry Auslese taste like?
[This message has been edited by VouvrayHead (edited 08-01-2006).]
- Innkeeper - 08-01-2006
Dry Auslese tastes like Dry Riesling with high alcohol. That is because it is high in sugar to begin with. The reason why it is rare is because Germans don't like high alcohol Riesling.
That is the traditional answer. Now-a-days, with all the high tech monkeying around that they do with wine (the Germans are past masters at it), you never know. Maybe they take some of the alky out of it. That would still not explain why they didn't make sweet Auslese out of it to begin with.
- Thomas - 08-01-2006
What IK said.
I've tasted a couple of them, and they were in the higher alcohol range. The problem isn't so much the alcohol but the balance. Something not-so-wonderful seems to happen to Riesling fruit character when it meets with high alcohol. That is partly why Alsatian Rieslings are so different from their German counterparts, which of course once were their German brethren, but that's another story...