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Wine from northern Germany is still a real specialty. It is often only served on individual occasions and is hardly available through the specialised trade. Internationally, these wines are completely unknown, but even in Germany only a few people know that vines have been growing for a long time in Schleswig-Holstein or Berlin, for example. This is now slowly beginning to change.
With the new regulation of winegrowing in Germany, which applies until 2020 for the time being, five hectares of new vineyards may be planted annually in all federal states since 2016. Previously, there was a Europe-wide ban on planting new vineyards. Due to climate change and significant warming, the conditions for growing grapes have also improved in northern Germany in recent years. Often fungus-resistant grape varieties are cultivated there, which require less plant protection and thus less effort in cultivation.
When Rhineland-Palatinate transferred ten hectares of vine planting rights to the state of Schleswig-Holstein in 2008, professional winegrowers from the Nahe or the Rheingau, for example, also took on the new vineyards: Steffen J. Montigny, for example, runs the Hof Altmühlen vineyard near Grebin in the vicinity of Kiel with about two hectares of cultivated land in addition to his farm in Bretzenheim on the Nahe. His 2014 white wine "So mookt wi dat" was even awarded by the State Viticulture Institute Freiburg (Baden) in 2015 and came second in the tasting of wines from fungus-resistant grape varieties from all over Germany. This shows that in good years, wines from the far north can definitely compete with those from traditional growing regions. In Keitum on Sylt , the Rheingau winery Balthasar Ress has been cultivating Germany's northernmost vineyard since 2009. Here, Müller-Thurgau vines grow alongside Solaris on 3,000 square metres. In Berlin, too, grapes are grown and vinified in cooperation with professional winegrowers. For example, the Saxon winery Schloss Proschwitz processes the yield from the 3,500 square metre vineyard in Prenzlauer Berg.
In Mecklenburg, the wine-growing region of Stargarder Land has a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. It includes the Rattey and Burg Stargard sites, each of which is tended by winegrowers' associations. The private winegrowers' association in Rattey, with 370 members, cultivates 4.75 hectares, and in Burg Stargard about 30 members cultivate 0.25 hectares. A total of about 15,000 vines are under cultivation.
The vineyards in northern Germany are not new wine-growing areas. Wines produced outside the 13 German quality wine regions are to be designated as "German wine" and may not be marketed as quality wine. In Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg and Brandenburg, so-called Landwein regions have now been designated. Wines from there may therefore be called Mecklenburger Landwein, for example.
(uka / Photo: www.balthasar-ress.de)