"Goldrush" for Germany's white wines

German wine producers emerged as one of the big winners in this year's International Wine & Spirits Competition as the Northern Hemisphere results were announced today at the London International Wine Fair. German wines won a total of 21 gold medals in this year's Competition, with 18 receiving the top honour of Gold (Best in Class), up from a total of 12 gold medals in 2009.
 

This outstanding result saw them finish joint third with Italy behind France and Spain on 29 and 23 golds respectively, ahead of countries such as the USA, which surprisingly received just one gold medal this year.

Outstanding: Franken region
Producers in the Franken region have particular reason to celebrate with an outstanding 63 medals awarded to the region’s wines, including 14 Gold (Best in Class). Winzer Sommerach topped the table with four Gold (Best in Class) medals, followed by acclaimed winery Horst Sauer with four gold medals including two Gold (Best in Class) for its Escherndorfer Lump wines. There were also strong performances from fellow VDP Franken producers Juliusspital and Schmitts Kinder, as well as producers less well known internationally, such as Ernst Popp and Divinio Nordheim.

Following a recent trip to Germany with the German Wine Institute (DWI), Andrew Connor, top sommelier from London’s Lutyens restaurant, was impressed with the quality of Franken wines and believes Riesling is not the only German grape varietal with food matching potential:

“I've lost count of the number of times I've been told that Riesling is a wonderful match with Japanese food but to my mind, Franken Silvaner is another perfect wine choice. The bocksbeutel is eye-catching, always provoking comment and the wines inside are so distinctive and food-friendly it seems extraordinary that they seem to be barely exported at all.”

unprecedented number of medals
Andrew Connor’s opinion appears to be in line with the IWSC results as Germany has won an unprecedented number of medals for white varietals other than Riesling, with wines made from Silvaner, Scheurebe, Weissburgunder and Gewürztraminer all achieving Gold Best in Class status. Prince Michael zu Salm-Salm, IWSC President for 2010, believes these results correlate with domestic trends in Germany.

“These IWSC results are a great boost for German wine producers looking to export to the UK. Plantings of white varietals in Germany have recently started to increase after years of decline and it seems German consumers have re-discovered their love for our white wines, as figures show domestic white wine consumption increased for the first time in years between 2008 and 2009. The support the IWSC can offer medal-winning producers in export markets is invaluable, so these results are particularly good news for Germany’s smaller producers.”

Noted for its vigorous and unrivalled judging process, the IWSC is proud to be the only competition of its kind that conducts a full blind tasting with extensive chemical analysis and a panel of over 300 fully qualified, experienced industry judges. The IWSC banquet will be held in November in London where trophies for the best producers and wines in this year’s Competition will be awarded. Last year’s IWSC German producer of the year was Weingut Schmitt’s Kinder.

Editors’ notes:
The International Wine and Spirit Competition was founded in 1969 and is the premier competition of its kind in the world. Its aim is to promote the quality and excellence of the world's best wines, spirits and liqueurs. All entries of wines, spirits and liqueurs are blind tasted in groups divided by variety, region and vintage as necessary. Awards are made on a points system and sponsored trophies are presented in selected categories.

Technical analysis is carried out on Gold (Best in Class), Gold, Silver (Best in Class) award winning wines, spirits and liqueurs to ensure that all products are technically sound and will be of the same high quality when they reach the consumer as they were when the judging panels originally tasted them.

The IWSC is supported by a group of vice presidents made up of some of the most influential men and women in the trade, including Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, Miguel Torres, Marchese Piero Antinori, Robert Drouhin, Paul Symington, May de Lencquesaing, Gina Gallo, Rafael Guilisasti and this year’s IWSC President, Prince Michael zu Salm-Salm, of the distinguished and most venerated Salm-Dalberg family.