Published at 15:41, Wednesday, 07 July 2010

GERMANY has certainly hit the sweet spot in soccer’s World Cup. Few knew much about them – you could say much the same about the country’s wines.

What a mistake on both counts. And when it comes to its wine Germany is still mostly the world’s best-kept secret.

The country produces what some experts call the world’s best white wine made from the Riesling (dry and sweet) producing delicious, sometimes steely but always refreshing orchard fruit flavours. Yet it still has great difficulty in getting the message across to consumers generally.

And that has been Germany’s own goal.

Too many of us for too long have been put off by the reputation that Germany only produces sweet wine – so wide of the mark. But the blame rests with the term Liebfraumilch – or Blue Nun. Virtually the same for 30 years, since the brand was launched by H. Sichel in the 50s but no longer so.

Like many of a generation I have to admit that Blue Nun was the first white wine to pass my lips – I liked it but in those days most whites came out of the fridge streaming wet!

In essence it was probably too sweet and a bit sugary but it was probably the world’s largest international wine brand for the mass market until one day those easy-drinking semi-sweet German wines began to fade in popularity as we woke up no doubt to some better stuff. Snobbery also took over.

But now Blue Nun, medium sweet, is back on the shelves in all her glory.

Celebrity status linked with songs by The Beatles, the Beastie Boys and one Alan Partridge – his wine of choice – may have helped but the real reason for Blue Nun’s resurgence is down to Riesling: up to 30 per cent of the grape variety has been introduced and is now quality driven with alcohol still relatively low.

You call also get Blue Nun Gold, a sparkler which is said to appeal to young women drinkers!

Germany also does chardonnay and pinot grigio (Black Tower label) but you can’t go too far wrong these days with a decent hock (brown bottle) or a piersporter (green) from either side of The Rhine – delicious, refreshing and mainly medium dry.

Don’t be put off by all the confusing names: simply look out for ‘qualitatswein’ on the label but ‘pradikat’ will raise the quality bar – just like Germany’s team!

Published by http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk