Grape variety
Müller-Thurgau
Müller-Thurgau, Riesling-Sylvaner in Switzerland: bred in 1882 by Hermann Müller from Thurgau. Parentage, where it grows and what to eat with it.
- Colour
- White
- Parentage
- Riesling × Madeleine Royale, bred in 1882 by Hermann Müller at Geisenheim
- Grown in Switzerland
- About 410 hectares, nearly all in German-speaking Switzerland (Zurich, Thurgau, Schaffhausen, Aargau, St. Gallen)
- Typical aromas
- Green apple, elderflower, muscat, nutmeg
- Classic pairing
- Zürcher Geschnetzeltes with Rösti, Fischknusperli, asparagus
- Synonyms
- Riesling-Sylvaner, Riesling × Sylvaner (Switzerland), Rivaner (Germany, Luxembourg)
Müller-Thurgau is the white grape of German-speaking Switzerland, and the only one of the country’s main varieties with a Swiss breeder. Hermann Müller was born in 1850 in Tägerwilen in the canton of Thurgau, and in 1882, while working at the research station in Geisenheim in the Rheingau, he announced a new cross that he believed combined Riesling with Sylvaner. In 1891 he returned to Switzerland to lead the new research station at Wädenswil on Lake Zurich. The variety took his name and his home canton; in Switzerland, though, it is still mostly sold as Riesling-Sylvaner or Riesling × Sylvaner.
The name is wrong. Doubts about the Sylvaner parent were raised as early as the 1950s on the shape of the leaves, and DNA analysis around the turn of the millennium showed that the second parent was in fact Madeleine Royale, a 19th-century French table grape. Germany and Luxembourg, which grow far more of it than Switzerland, often label it Rivaner, a contraction of the old, incorrect name.
In Switzerland Müller-Thurgau covers about 410 hectares, nearly all of them north of the Alps in the cantons of Zurich, Thurgau, Schaffhausen, Aargau and St. Gallen, where it is the standard white alongside Blauburgunder. It ripens early, which suited the cool pre-Alpine climate of a century ago, and it yields generously; its weaknesses are a sensitivity to rot and a tendency to flatness when the crop is too large. Modern growers prune harder, pick fresher and have raised its reputation considerably.
The wine is light, soft and fragrant, with green apple, elderflower, a muscat-like perfume and a touch of nutmeg, low in acidity and meant to be drunk within a year or two. It is the everyday white of the Zurich wine villages and the natural companion of Zürcher Geschnetzeltes with Rösti, fried lake fish, asparagus in spring and a plate of Fischknusperli by the lake. Serve it well chilled.