Wine region
Rheingau
The Rheingau: about 3,100 hectares on south-facing slopes above the Rhine, Riesling on three quarters of the vines, Eberbach, Johannisberg, Assmannshausen.
- Vineyard area
- about 3,100 hectares, about 3 per cent of Germany’s vineyards
- Main grapes
- Riesling (about three quarters), Spätburgunder, Weissburgunder, Grauburgunder
- Soils and climate
- south-facing slopes below the Taunus; loess, loam, quartzite, slate; about 600 mm of rain
- Signature wines
- Riesling from dry to noble sweet, Erstes Gewächs, Spätburgunder from Assmannshausen
- Landmark
- Eberbach Abbey, founded by Cistercians in 1136
The Rheingau is small and famous. On about 3,100 hectares, nearly 3 per cent of Germany’s vineyards, it forms a strip some 30 kilometres long that runs from Hochheim am Main and Wicker via Wiesbaden to Lorch on the Rhine. Here the river makes a turn: between Wiesbaden and Rüdesheim it flows west, and the vines stand on south-facing slopes below the forested heights of the Taunus, which keep off cold north winds. The river gives warmth and light, the soils range from loess and loam to quartzite and slate, and with about 600 millimetres of rain a year the climate is mild.
The Rheingau is Riesling country: about three quarters of the vineyard carries the variety. The Cistercians founded Eberbach Abbey in 1136 and made it one of the largest wine estates in Germany in the Middle Ages; the Hessian State Wine Estates, the region’s largest, carry on the legacy. At Schloss Johannisberg a vineyard was planted almost entirely with Riesling from 1720, and by tradition Spätlese was discovered there in 1775, when a courier brought the permission to harvest too late and the grapes turned noble-rotten.
Red is the exception, but an important one: Assmannshausen, in the west of the region, is the Rheingau’s red-wine village, with Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) mostly on slate soils, for example in the Höllenberg. Geisenheim has been home since 1872 to a research institute for viticulture that is still famous. It was here that Hermann Müller from Thurgau bred Müller-Thurgau in 1882, believed to be a cross of Riesling and Silvaner, hence its Swiss name Riesling-Silvaner; DNA later showed the parents to be Riesling and Madeleine Royale.
The Prädikat system, from Kabinett to Trockenbeerenauslese, applies here as everywhere in Germany. On top comes the classification of sites: since the 1999 vintage the Rheingau has had Erstes Gewächs, dry wines from classified sites, permitted only for Riesling and Spätburgunder. Alongside it, the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP) has since 2012 distinguished four levels nationwide: Gutswein, Ortswein, Erste Lage and Grosse Lage; the best dry wine of a Grosse Lage is called Grosses Gewächs.
Rheingau Riesling is usually fuller and more powerful than its Mosel cousin: ripe peach, apricot, citrus, mineral freshness, often made dry or off-dry. At the table, dry Rieslings go with asparagus, pike-perch and roast pork, in Hesse traditionally with Handkäs mit Musik, a sour-milk cheese dressed with onions; a Spätburgunder from Assmannshausen with game or duck, a Spätlese or Auslese with blue cheese or apricot cake.