Never before have so many champagne corks is a-popping in the last weeks of the year, and in no country so often as in Germany. Per head be drunk, according to the latest statistics of the German wine Institute’s three and a half liters of sparkling wine in the year – but it was five years earlier, four liters. There is a certain Trend to higher-value sects, says Ernst Büscher from the German wine Institute. The sparkling wine is increasingly taken note of.
“The quality of German bubbler is gone in the last few years, to the downright adventurous way to the top,” the “Vinum wine guide 2019”. The as a trailblazer and pioneer for high-class sect called the Rhine Hessian winemaker Volker Raumland in blind samples, the participants difficult to detect in comparison with champagne when we smell and taste the differences.
“We have imported our own style”
last year, about 96,000 litres of champagne were to Germany. Around 14 percent of all imported sparkling wines, and 1.3 percent in 2016.
“We have our own style, this is not a copy of the champagne,” says area country. Even if the nature of the production with the second fermentation in the bottle is the same as in Champagne, there are in Rhine-Hesse, but a very different Terroir, a character of the Soil. “Instead of the chalk soils as the Champagne, we have a mussel and algal limestone soils – this is also not a bad Terroir.” And the climate is at a disadvantage the Champagne region compared to Rhine-Hesse.
An underestimated niche product
“For me, sparkling wine is one of the most underrated products that we have in the wine industry,” says Büscher. “Sparkling wines are of quality on par with international competition, also with champagne.” They are as attractively priced, with a market share of three per cent – around 9 million litres at a total annual consumption of 290 million liters of sparkling wine – but still a niche product.
Volker Raumland don’t like the term “sparkling wine too rural to me sounds.” He prefers the notion of the traditional fermentation in the bottle. Thus the delimitation of the big brands, with tank fermentation for consumers would be significant.
Trend to quality
In the case of the Henkell group in Wiesbaden, Germany, the competition of winemakers sects will be considered positively, as “activity that optimizes the perception of the quality of appearance of the genus of sparkling wine in addition”. The Trend to quality, and consumers are willing to pay for it, says the spokesman for the Henkell Board of management, Andreas Brokemper. The Henkell & co. cellars KG, which has resulted in this year with the Acquisition of the Spanish producer Freixenet’s international Expansion, sparkling wine sets the brand Menger-Krug, also fermentation in the bottle.
In contrast to the wine with its many winemakers scene was sparkling with a strongly brand-oriented product, explains Büscher and called in addition to Henkell than other large provider, little red riding hood/Mumm and Schloss Wachenheim in the Palatinate.
Cuvées from Burgundy varieties are popular
since the beginning of the 1980s, winemakers have started in a larger scale, to versekten their own wine. He was made in 1981, during his studies in Geisenheim from 100 liters of wine is the first sparkling wine, recalls the space of the country. After the very lot of Vintage 1982 the rich have many wine growers to new marketing opportunities. At that time, the community of producers of sparkling wine originated in the Rhine Hessen. Among its principles, origin:”. A Grape Variety. A Year.“
