German wine regions explained: the 13 Anbaugebiete and what their names protect

The short answer

Germany has 13 wine-growing regions, or Anbaugebiete: the Ahr, Baden, Franken, Hessische Bergstraße, Mittelrhein, Mosel, Nahe, Pfalz, Rheingau, Rheinhessen, Saale-Unstrut, Sachsen and Württemberg.[1] Each region's name is also an EU protected designation of origin (PDO). Eleven of the 13 carry an EU protection date of 18 September 1973; Saale-Unstrut and Sachsen, the two regions in the east, carry 15 November 1996.[16]

The PDO is what the name guarantees. The European Commission says that for a PDO wine the grapes have to come exclusively from the area where the wine is made, and for a PGI wine at least 85% of them.[19]

The descriptions below are the German Wine Institute's. It describes itself as the central communication and marketing organisation of the German wine industry, so it is a promoter, not a regulator; the legal definitions are in the EU register's technical files.[2]

The 13 regions, river by river

Most regions follow rivers, which is the simplest way to place them.

The Rhine and its side valleys.

• Rheingau: vineyards from Frankfurt am Main via Wiesbaden and then for about 50 kilometres along the right bank of the Rhine to Lorch, north of Rüdesheim. The Institute explains that the Rhine turns west at Wiesbaden and, after about 30 kilometres, north again at Rüdesheim. The Institute credits Kloster Johannisberg with discovering the advantage of a late harvest in 1775.[11]
• Rheinhessen: the hill country between Alzey, Worms, Mainz and Bingen, enclosed by the bend of the Rhine.[12]
• Mittelrhein: vineyards over more than 100 kilometres from Bingen to the edge of Bonn, mostly on steep slopes, plus two villages on the Lahn. Its southern part, the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, is the World Heritage landscape covered in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley castles guide.[7]
• Nahe: the Nahe and its tributaries Glan and Alsenz, with soils the Institute lists as slate, volcanic porphyry, loess and loam.[9]
• Pfalz: the region along the Deutsche Weinstraße, which links its 130 wine villages over 85 kilometres from Bockenheim to Schweigen on the border with Alsace.[10]
• Hessische Bergstraße: a region of its own since 1971, in two separate pieces, the Starkenburg area south of Darmstadt and the much smaller Bereich Umstadt around Groß-Umstadt.[6]
• Ahr: a side valley in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate that the Institute describes as a red-wine region, with red grapes on 79 percent of its vineyards.[3]

The Mosel. The region named Mosel also covers two tributaries, the Saar and the Ruwer. The Institute places it between Perl and Koblenz on the Mosel, Serrig and Konz on the Saar, and Riveris to the Ruwer district of Trier, with half its vineyards on slopes steeper than 30 degrees.[8] The Institute also says the region is considered the oldest in Germany.[1]

The Main. Franken lies between the Rhön, the Steigerwald, the Taubertal and the Spessart, with Würzburg at its centre and Silvaner as its signature white grape, according to the Institute.[5]

The south-west. Baden stretches about 400 kilometres from the Tauber in the north to Lake Constance in the south, in nine sub-regions from Tauberfranken to the Kaiserstuhl and the Markgräflerland.[4] Württemberg follows the Neckar and its tributaries, the Rems, Enz, Kocher, Jagst and Tauber; the Institute says red varieties fill 65 percent of its vineyards, led by Trollinger and Lemberger, and that more than 50 wine-growers' cooperatives market about 80 percent of its wine.[15]

The east. Saale-Unstrut has mostly terraced vineyards in the narrow valleys of those two rivers, on the 51st parallel, with wine-growing first documented in 998.[13] Sachsen is the easternmost region; the Institute says its vineyards begin at Dresden, that wine-growing there was first documented in 1161, and that the 55-kilometre Sächsische Weinstraße runs from Pirna via Dresden, Radebeul and Meißen to Diesbar-Seußlitz.[14]

What the register adds

The register lists 19 German wine PDOs, not 13. The other six are single sites registered between 2014 and 2017: Bürgstadter Berg, Monzinger Niederberg, Würzburger Stein-Berg and three names beginning "Uhlen".[16]

It also lists 27 German wine PGIs, almost all of them "Landwein" names, such as Pfälzer Landwein, Badischer Landwein or Landwein der Mosel. Under the Commission's definitions, a Landwein PGI needs at least 85% of its grapes from its area, against all of them for a region PDO.[19][16]

The technical files show what a region name controls. The Franken file, filed by the Free State of Bavaria, defines the area commune by commune, lists the traditional terms Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein, and sets a minimum natural alcohol: 8.0% by volume for quality wine, but 9.4% for quality wine to be bottled in a Bocksbeutel, the bottle the Institute calls Franken's trademark.[1][17] The Mosel file names two applicants, the states of Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate, and caps yields at 125 hectolitres per hectare.[18]

Where names and borders do not line up

A region's name is not always a guide to its map.

• Franken is not all of Franconia. The Baden page names Tauberfranken as one of Baden's sub-regions, while the Franken technical file defines Franken by communes in Bavarian administrative regions only.[17][4] XTOUR's reading of those two sources is that a wine from Tauberfranken is a Baden wine, not a Franken one.
• Lake Constance has three names. Baden counts a Bodensee sub-region, the Württemberg page says its growers work even at Lake Constance, and the register has a separate PGI, Bayerischer Bodensee-Landwein.[16][15][4]
• Mosel crosses a state line. The Institute says the Moseltor sub-region belongs to Saarland, and the Mosel file lists Perl, Oberperl, Nennig and Sehndorf in Saarland alongside its Rhineland-Palatinate communes.[18][8]
• "Northernmost" depends on the list. The Institute calls Saale-Unstrut Germany's northernmost quality-wine region.[13] The register also holds Landwein PGIs named after Mecklenburg, Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein.[16] XTOUR's reading is that the Institute's description applies to the 13 quality-wine regions; XTOUR has not read those Landwein files.

Wine regions and XTOUR destinations

Two of XTOUR's German destinations are named in these sources. The Institute says Saxony's vineyards begin at Dresden, and its wine road runs through the city.[14] The Franken technical file lists the city of Bamberg among the communes of the Franken PDO.[17] Neither source makes either city the centre of its region: the Institute names Meißen as the cradle of Saxon wine-growing and Würzburg as the centre of Franken.[5][14]

For protected German food and drink names, including beers, see the German food guide.

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not name wineries, tastings or wine festivals, and does not rate wines or vintages. It does not repeat the Institute's vineyard areas, which are given for different years on different pages. The technical files quoted are the register's 2011 copies; the register lists later Official Journal publications for Mosel and Franken, which XTOUR has not read.[16] XTOUR has no route or travel-time data for any of these regions. Germany lists XTOUR's German destinations.