(Manfred Klimek)
The Markgräflerland, a land of inns with gentle hills rising towards the Black Forest, is a region that was diligently overlooked for a long time in German winegrowing – including, and above all (shame on me), by me. Perhaps because it cultivates no great myth. Perhaps also because it is home to a grape variety whose name has roughly the same erotic appeal as a Sparkasse branch just before closing time: Gutedel. The word alone sounds like a walking frame, a spa park, a bottle in a retirement hotel.
Yet precisely in this variety lies a modernity that has already been recognised, and which can – and must – now become astonishing.
For the Chasselas, as Gutedel is known in the French-speaking world, and as many winegrowers here also correctly put it on their labels instead of Gutedel, possesses qualities that suddenly seem highly interesting again: low alcohol, gentle acidity, enormous drinkability and yet pressure on the palate. No banal muscle-bound wine, no aromatic overload. Rather, a wine that proceeds more than it marches. Younger consumers in particular, who are increasingly turning away from the exhausting overabundance of alcohol-heavy, brutally oak-driven or hyper-fruity wines, might suddenly discover in it something that the world of wine has often lacked of late: the self-evident nature of quiet greatness. The Markgräflerland begins to become genuinely exciting precisely where it no longer hides its supposed weakness. For Chasselas will never be Riesling. Never Sauvignon Blanc. And that is precisely why a new identity could emerge from old vines.
What is interesting here is the view towards the other end of the German-speaking world: Burgenland, on the Hungarian border – and the astonishing parallels. There, too, winegrowers have been working for years to bring regionally typical varieties out of their provincial shadow. Blaufränkisch, for example, was long regarded as a rustic Eastern European with acidity problems and peasant harshness. Today, some of Europe’s most exciting red wines are being made from it. And even Grüner Veltliner, planted less widely in Burgenland, but also in the variety’s country of origin, is suddenly taking on a different meaning there: less DAC bureaucracy, less peppery folklore, more substance.
Both regions share something fundamental: they lie on the outermost climatic (but similar) and cultural margins of the German-speaking world and for a long time had to contend with the prejudice that they did not quite belong. The Markgräflerland, with its warm-hearted Burgundian influence and its proximity to Switzerland and Alsace. Burgenland, with its Pannonian heat and centuries-old ties to Hungary.
That is precisely why both regions seem remarkably modern today.
For the future of winegrowing will probably not be decided where everything appears standardised and perfect. Rather, where distinctive characteristics have been allowed to remain. This is now clearly perceptible in the Markgräflerland. Above all among a younger generation of winegrowers who no longer manage Chasselas as a remnant of tradition, but understand it as an opportunity. The variety demands enormous precision. Too much yield and it becomes inconsequential. Too much cellar technology and it loses all its tension. But when it succeeds, wines emerge with a peculiar mixture of saltiness, herbaceousness and astonishing energy.
At the same time, the Pinot Noir of this area is also undergoing a remarkable development. Indeed, Burgundy is currently running like an invisible line through Baden. Not as a copy, but as an idea of finesse, freedom and provenance.
This was also evident in the Kaiserstuhl, where I drank wines at Franz Keller and Bernhard Huber that, in their precision and inner tension, go far beyond what many international consumers still associate with German wine. Friedrich Keller and Julian Huber have long belonged to that small group of German oenologists who have understood that greatness does not arise from over-ripeness or extraction, but from balance, texture and provenance.
The Pinot Noirs in particular have now reached a level that would scarcely have been imaginable in Germany twenty years ago. No more jammy powerhouses, no masking by oak, no saccharine internationalism. Instead, cool depth, polished tannins and remarkable precision.
And this is precisely where the real story of this journey begins.
For the Markgräflerland does not end at the border. Culturally and climatically, it continues into Alsace. There, between limestone, the Vosges and the Rhine plain, some of Europe’s most interesting wines are also currently being made. Wines that rely less on prestige and bluster than on provenance, tension and drinkability.
In the coming weeks, from mid-June onwards, a WELT am SONNTAG four-part print series about exceptional wines and wine estates from this region will appear – including Blankenhorn, Brenneisen, Leon Boesch, Rieger, Schlumberger-Bernardt and Ziereisen. A journey along that narrow European zone between the Black Forest, the Rhine and the Vosges, where wine is currently becoming enormously exciting. And young!