From Worms the Rhine flows north to Mainz, swings west and runs on to Bingen. Inside that knee, across the river from the Rheingau, lies Rheinhessen, the land of a thousand hills: about 27,700 hectares of gentle slopes between Mainz, Worms, Bingen and Alzey, Germany’s largest wine region. The name recalls the Grand Duchy of Hesse, which held the province from 1816; today it lies in Rheinland-Pfalz. It is one of Germany’s warmest and driest corners, with about 500 to 600 millimetres of rain a year, on loess, limestone and marl.
Red rock above the river
The exception is the Rheinterrasse. Between Nackenheim and Nierstein the hills drop straight to the river along the Roter Hang: about five kilometres of slopes steeper than 20 per cent on Rotliegend, Permian sandstone and claystone coloured red by iron, which stores the day’s heat. Rothenberg, Pettenthal, Hipping and Ölberg give some of Germany’s richest Rieslings, and by tradition the Niersteiner Glöck, traced to a deed of 742, is the country’s oldest documented vineyard.
In the glass
The grapes the region is known for, by sweetness, acidity, tannin and body.
| Grape | Sweetness | Acidity | Tannin | Body |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riesling | dry to luscious | high | white, no tannin | light to medium(+) |
| Müller-Thurgau | dry to off-dry | low to medium(−) | white, no tannin | light to medium(−) |
| Silvaner | dry, also sweet | medium(−) to medium | white, no tannin | medium(−) to full |
| Pinot Gris | dry to off-dry, also sweet | medium(−) to medium | white, no tannin | medium(−) to full |
| Pinot Blanc | dry to off-dry, also sweet | medium to medium(+) | white, no tannin | medium(−) to medium(+) |
| Pinot Noir | dry | medium(+) to high | low to medium | light to medium |
Each grape’s typical range worldwide, not in this region alone, on the WSET tasting grid (Level 3, 2022): dry to luscious, low to high, light to full. The dot before each name shows the colour of a typical bottle. Outlined: a sweet style beside the dry wines.
From Liebfraumilch to Grosses Gewächs
The region’s reputation was made and unmade in Worms. Wine from the vineyards around the Liebfrauenkirche was called Liebfrauenmilch by the 18th century, and Blue Nun later made it a hit in Britain and the United States. By the 1970s and 1980s Liebfraumilch meant cheap sweet supermarket wine that hurt German wine as a whole. Shortly after 2000 some twenty young growers founded Message in a Bottle for dry, site-driven wines, and the limestone Wonnegau in the south, with Keller in Flörsheim-Dalsheim and Wittmann in Westhofen, became the new centre of gravity. Morstein, Kirchspiel, Pettenthal and Hipping are VDP Grosse Lagen; Mainz and Rheinhessen have been a Great Wine Capital since 2008.
Sense of scale
27,700 ha Rheinhessen has about 1.9× as many vines as all of Switzerland.
One square is all of Switzerland: about 14,350 hectares of vines.
Vineyards compared
Vineyard area in hectares, rounded, as the articles give it. Regions without a reliable figure are left out.
A Thurgau name in second place
Three quarters of the vineyard is white. Riesling leads with about a fifth, over 5,000 hectares, about as much as the Mosel and a little less than the Pfalz. Müller-Thurgau follows with about 3,800 hectares, a good third of the German total and more than any other region: the cross that Hermann Müller from Tägerwilen in Thurgau bred at Geisenheim in 1882 covers here many times the roughly 410 hectares of all Switzerland. Silvaner keeps about 1,800 hectares, over 40 per cent of Germany’s, a stronghold shared with Franken; Georg Scheu bred Scheurebe at Alzey in 1916. About a quarter is red, led by Dornfelder with about 3,000 hectares, more than in any other region.
Weck, Worscht un Woi
Riesling from the Roter Hang is ripe and broad, yellow fruit with a smoky, almost salty note; from the Wonnegau limestone it is tighter, with citrus and a chalky grip. At the table: dry Riesling at 8 to 10 °C with pike-perch, asparagus or Spundekäs, the cream-cheese spread Mainz serves with pretzels; Dornfelder lightly chilled, 14 to 16 °C, with the grilled sausages of the wine festivals. Mainz sums it up as Weck, Worscht un Woi: roll, sausage and wine.