As anyone who follows our magazine cannot have failed to notice, we are deeply fond of German wines, although our focus is, in fact, on cold-climate wines in general. But these days, Germany is evolving particularly fast as a wine country.
German-born Master of Wine Anne Krebiehl has also not failed to notice this, and Infinite Ideas Limited has recently published her book The Wines of Germany, which we of course had to get our hands on. And we have decided to share a bit of our experience with the book here.
Adorned with a picture of Katz Castle on the front and Trittenheim in the Mosel on the back, we find the paperback version inviting to look at and to hold. It looks modern and the text is enticing.
The book then begins with five maps of German wine regions – and while their position might make them easy to look up later, and also give the reader an immediate geographical reminder of the book’s content, it is one of the weaker parts of this book. The maps are kept in black and white, and particularly the first one, displaying the positions of the regions in Germany, is difficult to make out. Five maps on four A5 pages is not a lot of space to illustrate a wine country of Germany’s size, and the lack of colour does not add to the amount of detail on the maps. You will need your reading glasses.
Quickly moving on through Anne’s introduction and a remarkably short but precise account of German wine history, the author jumps bravely and directly into the complex wine laws of Germany. And she does so with grace. The account is interesting, easy to understand, and serious, without ever getting too complicated or overly detailed – that is for other books to be. Enough graphs, tables, and highlighted “wine facts” break up the text to make the hardcore wine knowledge easy to remember and get through.
And with the legal, geographical, and historical setting all in place, the author moves on to describe in detail the favourite grapes of Germany — you know which ones they are — and gives us a short speculative note on climate change before diving into each wine region in detail.
Once again, we do miss some detailed maps of the regions in each section, but the text itself is wonderful for those wishing to know more about German wines, but who have not studied them in detail before. Each region is given a subtitle, which sums up the essence of the region really well, in our opinion. A few Weingüter in each section are also described with the author’s recommendation, but no specific ratings are given. It is just not that kind of book.
At the end, you’ll find a glossary of German wine words, which is particularly helpful to those who have just become interested in German wines, and you’ll find a decent-sized index for those who know what they are looking for. The bibliography reveals mostly newer literature published in the last century, with a few well-chosen exceptions. Both English and German literature is listed.
In the end, we would recommend the book to those relatively new to German wines, or those who just can’t get enough of them. The book could definitely benefit from more graphical depictions and use of colour, but it almost makes up for this through the language, composition of the text, and well-chosen content.