The 1971 German wine law

The 1971 law organised German quality wine around must weight: the more sugar in the grapes at harvest, the higher the Prädikat, running Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Eiswein and Trockenbeerenauslese.

It also abolished thousands of individual vineyard names, consolidating them into a much smaller number of Grosslagen — collective names that could be applied to wine from a wide area, and which were frequently indistinguishable on a label from a single distinguished site.

The commercial consequence was severe. Ripeness is not quality, and the system permitted a great deal of thin, sweetened bulk wine to carry impressive-looking labels, of which Liebfraumilch became the emblem.

German producers responded outside the law. The VDP, an association of leading estates, built its own site-based four-tier classification culminating in Grosses Gewächs, which functions as a parallel system.

A substantial reform passed in 2021 moves German wine law towards an origin-based pyramid on the French model, phased in across the decade.