“Jérôme, I booked your wine tour, but my wife doesn’t like Riesling”. This is the moment I realise a tour might get complicated – after all, we are touring the Riesling paradise that is Germany. My first reflex in these cases is to recommend a new wife, which is possibly not the best idea.

The sad fact is that I do sometimes have guests with preconceptions about Rieslings, so I have developed a bit of a strategy:

• Explain there’s more to German white wine than Riesling. There’s some fantastic other varietals worth exploring: Weissburgunder and Grauburgunder (Pinot Blanc and Grigio, respectively), Sauvignon Blanc, and some more Germanic varietals such as Scheurebe or Silvaner.
• Don’t tell. Start your tasting journey with a Winzersekt, a sparkling wine made ‘méthode traditionelle’. Some of the best are made from dry Riesling. Very often these elegant and light sparklings have aromas of candy and white flowers, and very light brioche notes. Reveal the Riesling connection only after your sparkling-lover has expressed his/her delight.
• Many Riesling-haters argue that Riesling is too sweet and too acidic, which might be true for some bottom-shelf or export Rieslings. Now give them both in one: a good off-dry Riesling Kabinett balances off acid and residual sweetness so nicely newbies will not even notice it is not 100 percent dry.
• By now cracks in the resistance are showing. It is time to pull out the big guns: pour a Grand Cru Riesling (Grosses Gewächs), if possible slightly matured. Few white wines have such complexity: peach, apple, apricot, limestone, pineapple, flint, wet stones… all that and more can be part of the aroma profile, and it varies from vineyard to vineyard, even though they might be just a couple of metres apart.
• All of that did not work? That’s the moment to pull out a bottle of Pinot Noir, Germany’s second great varietal whose best expressions give a Burgundy a good run for their money.

If that fails, order tea and look out of the window.

Jérôme is the founder of the Mainz-based wine tour company BottleStops. He firmly believes that German wines deserve better than Rhine Cruises and Blue Nun.

It’s one of those enduring clichés about Germany that is refusing to die, particularly in the UK: that German wine equals sweet Liebfrauenmilch  – usually mentioned with a smile of gentle deprecation. The truth, however, is very far removed from the stereotype, for German wine is one of the country’s success stories, in particular its Riesling varieties, praised by wine experts worldwide.

Sizewise, Germany can, of course, not compare itself with big players such as France. There’s simply not enough of it for worldwide export and the locals like to drink it themselves (apart from Blue Nun, of course). That in itself is enough reason to travel to Germany, particularly during the many wine festivals in summer and early autumn, but there’s also a new generation of young winemakers who are exploring organic wine-making and reinventing traditional grape varieties, giving wine a stylish new look.

There are altogether 13 different wine-growing districts. The biggest is the Rheinhessen region in the Rhineland-Palatinate with 26,000 hectares of vine. The smallest is in Saxony with 410 hectares. Other major wine areas are the Palatinate, Baden, Moselle, Franconia, Nahe and the Rheingau.

Rheinhessen

Germany’s biggest wine-growing district is synonymous with wine. Almost every village in the region between Alzey, Worms, Mainz and Bingen, is somehow involved with wine. Perfect weather conditions contribute to the quality of grapes here. Apart from Riesling, Silvaner is a traditional grape variety. Rheinhessen is also a good place to try some red wines, with one-third of the whole vineyard area now being covered with red grape varieties.

Young vintners are at the forefront of winemaking

Above all, what makes Rheinhessen so interesting is the generation of young vintners. One of the big talents is Carolin Kühling-Guillot who runs the Kühling-Guillot estate with her husband and is widely praised for her Pinot Noir. By the way, this is the original home of the (in)famous Liebfrauenmilch, first produced in the 18^th century with grapes from the vineyards of the Liebfrauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) in Worms.

In fact, after decades of criticism Liebfrauenmilch has been reborn, and the Gutzler vineyard has been successful in reintroducing it to the wine lists of some of Germany’s top restaurants.

Palatinate

This is a major destination for any wine lover not only because of the biggest wine festival worldwide taking place each year in Bad Dürkheim but also because of the German Wine Road which meanders from Bockenheim to the French border. Classical grape varieties prevail here, in particular Riesling but also Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris. Renowned traditional wine-growing estates such Dr. Bürklin-Wolf, Reichsrat v. Buhl, Bassermann Jordan or Menger Krug, who have been in the wine-making business for centuries, plus a young and adventurous breed of winemakers such as Schneider in Ellerstadt who have a very individual take on labels – check it out! – and a knack for marketing.

Baden

Germany’s third biggest and most southerly wine district includes popular travel destinations such as the Black Forest, Lake Constance, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden or Freiburg. The area stretches for 400 km and consequently a wide variety of types of wines can be found. More sun than in other places in Germany determines the taste of the wines produced here, and it is the best place to find Pinot Noir.

Moselle

The Romans brought wine-making to the Moselle and left some of their wine presses here for visitors to see.  A lot of the wine grows in quite spectacular fashion on slopes along the Moselle, including the world’s steepest vineyard, Bremmer Calmont. Lots of options to combine wine tasting with hiking or cycling in one of Germany’s most picturesque spots.

Franconia

Famous for the pot-bellied bottle type, Bocksbeutel. The Müller-Thurgau grape variety is mostly grown here and has been updated by young wine-makers. Silvaner white wines are another specialty. Wine-growing is centred around the Baroque town of Würzburg, and the Main cycling track is a great way to explore the region from the wine perspective.

Nahe

The insider tip in the south-west, this wine-growing district along the Nahe river has a 2,000 year-old tradition of wine-making. Lots of Riesling, but also Rivaner, Silvaner and Burgundies. The region features spa towns such as Bad Kreuznach or Bad Münster am Stein, and there’s a nice wine road and cycling tracks along the Nahe.

Rheingau

The Rhine, by turning west near Wiesbaden and then heading north again 30 km later, created a perfect place for the 3,100 hectare Rheingau wine-growing district, famous for its Riesling. Assmannshausen is also particularly known for Pinot Noir.

There are more details on all German wine regions here: www.deutscheweine.de

From time to time you can trust Germans to know where their country is at its best. West of the Rhine and right next to France, the much-beloved German Wine Route in the Palatinate (Pfalz) region runs through the country’s second largest wine growing area. Starting in Bockenheim in the north it works its way down south for 83 km and ends in Schweigen, right on the French border.

The German Wine Route is the oldest scenic route in the country, and the region it passes through is enchanting throughout most of the year. In spring, when the almond trees lining the road are in bloom; in August when the route is closed for car traffic for one day to give cyclists free reign. Or in late summer and early autumn when wine festivals take place virtually every weekend in one of the villages along the route.

Knowing about wine is not an exception but the rule

These qualities have attracted a long list of famous names. Visitors to Deidesheim, for example, will be joining a list that includes the Queen, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Václav Havel. Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, a native of the Palatinate region, introduced all his state visitors to the delights of German wine and local food with a gourmet twist at the five-star Deidesheimer Hof restaurant and hotel. And at Edenkoben King Ludwig I of Bavaria built himself a little castle, now known as Villa Ludwigshöhe. Neustadt and its Hambach Castle have played their part on the national stage, too, because this is where the 1832 Hambacher Fest (Hambach Festival) marked the birth of democracy in Germany.

But back to the wine. Dr. Bürklin-Wolf, Reichsrat v. Buhl or Bassermann Jordan are some of the renowned traditional estates along the Wine Route, known for their high-quality products and the famous Palatinate Riesling. Some of them open their cellars – huge and cave-like structures – to visitors, and being guided through the systems of tunnels is both spooky and fascinating. But it is also worth seeking out some of the younger winemakers in the region, especially those who engage in organic winemaking and continue their family tradition in 21^st century fashion.

This region is often described as Germany’s Tuscany, because the climate is mild enough for all kinds of curious things such as a kiwifruit plantation in the wine village of Maikammer. But let’s not compare this place to somewhere else in the world. Visitors should not come here and look for Tuscany, but to admire characteristic little villages like St Martin, a picture-perfect German wine village with timber-framed houses, gazebos, gables and high round archways.

For some the route may have a Mediterranean touch, particularly in its southern section, but actually this is simply a little corner of Germany where the sun maybe shines a bit more often than in other parts, and where drinking and knowing about wine is not an exception but the rule.