Back to School: Part Three of Three

The third and final chapter in this Back to School series—in antithesis to the complexity of the previous—is the least rigidly scientific, but without a doubt, the most accessible. We’re presenting a grab bag of dry wines, all from the 2023 vintage, but from a variety of different regions in Germany. Compare and contrast.  

Referring back to the German Wine Classification tiers noted in the previous presentation, all of the wines in this third experiment are classified as Qualitätswein*, and not measured with any particular Pradikat. (*QbA: Quality wine from one of 13 official designated wine regions (PDO) that must pass an official quality test).

• Experiment Three:
  • Trockens from different hands across the land
    • Controls
      • Style: Trocken
      • Quality level: Qualitatswein (no Prädikat)
      • Vintage: 2023
    • Variables:
    • Region
      • Nahe
      • Pflalz
      • Mosel
    • Producers
      • Hexamer
      • Von Winning
      • Vollenweider
      • Merkelbach
      • Emrich Schonleber
      • Donnhoff

• You have some freedom to decide how you’d like to explore how regional variations and how they affect the finished wines.

Back to School Edition: Chapter Two of Three

Well, I’ve really leapt down a rabbit hole with this one…

This second selection of Back to School wines hits the peak of the technical complexity I’ll dive into for now. No promises about what kind of nerdiness the future holds, but that is a promise that the third set will be the most accessible.

Experiment two, takes us to Zeltinger Sonnenuhr in the year 2018.

All three wines presented here come from a vineyard that happens to neighbor the site presented in the previous post. For this study, we’ll taste how winemaker Markus Molitor approaches a few layers of the Prädikats.

About Prädikat:

German wine uses a four-tier quality framework based on the German Wine Classification:

• Deutscher Wein: Basic table wine with no specific geographic origin required on the label.