Last week after some hard-hitting investigation, I debunked the idea that people were shy about accurate alcohol information on their wine labels – a journalistic high moment. But that got me to thinking that maybe I should perform other public services and give back more to the community.
I did pass on information about how to understand cricket – many months ago – so in that same civic spirit, I would like to provide some useful hints about wine, specifically, how to read a German wine label.
It is a well-known fact that German wines are the most comprehensively labeled wines in the world. They provide a wealth of information, enabling the wine drinker to pick the right wine "for the job", so to speak. Regrettably, the information is in German, so the English-speaking "lay person" is at a disadvantage in deciphering what is on the label.
This is where I come in. Endless hours of research have given me unique insights into German wine-label cryptography, so I am happy to pass along a few tidbits of useful intelligence to you, the crypto-challenged "lay person".
First, good German wines are ranked according to how long the grapes have been ripening on the vines. This ranking is called "Prädikat". I cannot figure out why they put two dots over the 'a' when a plain 'a' would work just as well, but "Prädikat" means "predicate", in English. As you all know from when you studied French in high school, the predicate is actually the verb. You underline it twice when you diagram sentences, and all the other lines come off from it: the adverbs, the relative clauses, the objects of the verb and so on. So in German wine labeling, all the rankings branch off from this "verb", too.
"What are the rankings," you ask?
A very good and timely question.
The lowest ranking is "Kabinett". As you might have guessed, the word "Kabinett" in German is related to the English word "Cabinet" which itself comes from French. The French, of course, used it as "cabinet de toilette", so this wine is of a quality to be drunk in the toilet (or other "kabinetts"), preferably alone.
Let's move to the next level of quality, "Spätlese". Once again we see the 'a' with two dots over it. I really wish they would cut this out, as I have no idea how to pronounce it – even in my brain. You know what happens when you eat ice cream too fast? That is sort of what happens when I try to pronounce "Spätlese" in my head¹. Whatever the pronunciation, this ranking is a little higher than the "kabinett" one, but if you drink too much of it, you will probably "spät up", so it's best to go easy on it.
Moving right along, the next ranking is "Auslese". "Aus" means "off" in German and "lese" means "vintage", but this vintage is not "off" as we understand the word. Ha ha! This wine is good enough to take "off" the shelf in the "kabinett" – sort of like "coming out of the closet". You could even serve it to friends!
The fourth level of quality is called "Beerenauslese". We might read this in English as "beer 'n' auslese". Like "Auslese" above, this one is definitely good enough to serve guests, but should be drunk with beer. Those Germans! I would recommend a small glass of the wine followed by a stein of beer drunk as a chaser.
Next up the chain of command, so to speak, is "Eiswein". This means exactly what it sounds like, "ice wine". Although most of us would NEVER EVER put ice in our wines, in Germany this is what is required for this wine. It is so concentrated in its flavor that you should add ice to it to "weäken or dilüte it" before drinking.
The final level of quality is called "Trockenbeerenauslese". "Trocken" is German for "dry". This is also a wine that – as with simple "Beerenauslese" – you drink with beer. The difference is that you must drink both the bottle of wine and the stein of beer "dry". It is a cultural thing similar to the Japanese "kampai" or the Chinese "Gan bei" which means to "dry your cup", except you are dealing with a much larger volume, since you have to kill the whole bottle PLUS the large stein of beer. Be careful about "Späting" this one up too.
I hope these simple hints have been useful for you and that next time when you go to your local wine shop you will be able to casually bandy about these terms with the wine merchant, demonstrating how you have graduated from "lay person" to "person" in the wine world!
Cheers! Or as they say in Swedish, skål. It just goes to show that you can put a lot of things over the 'a' in other languages. Be thankful that you speak English and don't need to worry about them.
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¹ For you Japanese-speakers, it would be like trying to pronounce カ° .
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