(Manfred Klimek / animated pic: Runwayml)
You have to let this sink in: Rieslings that have been sent out into the world as Brauneberger Juffer for decades – indeed, for generations – are suddenly to be labelled Maring-Noviander Juffer from the 2026 vintage onwards. To prevent consumers from being misled, they say. I gather this from the Trierer Volksfreund, which is usually well informed about the region – the daily newspaper for the Moselle, Saar and Ruwer.
Consumers? Which ones exactly? The Japanese collector, the American merchant, the Moselle fan in Scandinavia? Does anyone seriously believe that they had previously assumed that a vineyard site had something to do with the municipal cadastral map? Yes, the German bureaucrat (men included) is touchingly concerned here about people who reject their concern. Or is the bureaucracy more concerned that it will soon run out of subjects to regulate? Then it is time to find – to invent – new ones. Otherwise the jobs will be gone at the next reform (which, in this country, is never coming anyway). Is that the fear neighing in the bureaucratic machinery? And if it turns out that this is even an EU regulation, then Brussels bureaucracy has provided further proof that someone needs to go through it with a lawnmower. And that jobs should be lost. Now!
Because terroir is not being defended here. Cadastral law is being enforced.
A few hectares of Piesporter Goldtröpfchen formally lie in Dhron – so in future Goldtröpfchen will become Dhroner Goldtröpfchen. Piesporter Grafenberg will become Dhroner Grafenberg. Zeltinger will become Rachtiger. And the Kröver Nacktarsch large vineyard will dutifully receive the additional label “Region”. One would like to laugh, if it were not so destructive.
The authority speaks of consumer protection. But who is actually protecting whom here? The consumers? Or its own raison d’être?
The wine law has existed in its modern form since 1971. For 55 years, municipal boundaries were no reason to brand centuries-old vineyard designations as misleading. For 55 years, no civil servant, no ministry and no committee furrowed its brow. And now, when almost everything is regulated, mapped, surveyed and digitised, they suddenly discover a moral imbalance in the name.
One may at least ask whether authorities whose original tasks are increasingly completed do not begin to create new ones for themselves. When the major construction sites have been regulated, one simply looks for smaller ones. When there are no genuine shortcomings left, formal ones are constructed. This is not a conspiracy theory, but a familiar pattern in organisational sociology: institutions tend towards self-preservation.
And what is better suited than wine? Visible, emotional, steeped in tradition – and not sufficiently systemically important politically to provoke serious resistance.
This is about more than labels. It is about brand value, an evolved cultural identity and an international reputation painstakingly built up over time. “Brauneberger Juffer” is a promise. A historic area whose name has been imbued with quality over generations. Forcing it back into the exact cadastral designation is not an act of clarity, but one of cultural impoverishment.
The comparison with Burgundy cannot be made often enough: there, municipal and vineyard designations are confidently combined in order to sharpen hierarchy and provenance. In Germany, established names are taken apart because they do not correspond to the current municipal administration. As if terroir had ever stopped at town signs.
But what is most disconcerting is the forbearance of those affected.
Why do the winegrowers put up with it? Why not say clearly, once and for all: no further? Why do they not show this authority the finger and publicly explain that consumers are not being protected here, but values destroyed?
Without the work of the Moselle winegrowers on their steep slopes, the valley would economically be a peripheral area with postcard romanticism. These businesses keep landscapes open, create jobs and generate international attention. And now, of all people, they are being told that the vineyard name they have used for decades is potentially misleading.
It is this mixture of formal correctness and blindness to substance that makes the German administrative apparatus so exasperating. Measuring tape instead of vision. Paragraphs instead of pragmatism. One regulates because one can regulate. And it – also a thoroughly German mania – must be done compulsorily.
Yet now would be the moment for radical reform of German bureaucracy. Less obsession with detail, more sense of responsibility. Less self-purpose, more monitoring of impact. Every new regulation should answer the question: what real problem are we solving – and what damage are we causing in the process?
Because if “consumer deception” is supposed to consist in a world-famous vineyard site not corresponding to the millimetre with today’s municipal boundary, then this bureaucracy has a luxury problem. Or a problem of legitimacy.
The German wine industry is already struggling with declining sales. Anyone who believes that, in this situation, established names must be dismantled with administrative precision has lost all sense of reality.
Reform means showing restraint. Authorities are not an end in themselves. They exist to solve problems – not to generate new ones.
Perhaps the winegrowers need a regional party that represents their interests locally.