Germany

Germany grows wine at the northern edge of what is possible, and every important feature of German wine follows from that. Vineyards face south, are planted on steep slopes to catch a low sun, and cluster along rivers whose surface reflects light and moderates the night. The Mosel's best sites reach gradients over 60 degrees and are worked by hand or by winch. In a cool climate the grapes keep acidity, and acidity is what lets a wine age and what balances sweetness.

Riesling is the point. It occupies around a quarter of the national vineyard, it transmits site differences more clearly than almost any other white grape, and it is the only major white that reliably produces great wine across the whole range from bone dry to intensely sweet. A dry Mosel riesling can be 8 percent alcohol and still taste complete, which nothing else manages.

The classification is genuinely confusing, because the legal system ranks ripeness at harvest while the market ranks vineyards. The Prädikat ladder, from Kabinett up through Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein, measures sugar in the grape when it was picked. It does not say whether the finished wine is sweet: a Spätlese can be fermented dry. The word to look for is trocken, which means dry. Separately, the VDP producers' association classifies vineyards, with Grosse Lage at the top and the dry wine from such a site labelled Grosses Gewächs.

Germany is also now a red wine country, which surprises people. Spätburgunder, which is pinot noir, is the third most planted variety and Baden and the Ahr make serious examples. Warming has moved the whole national conversation: ripeness that used to be exceptional is now ordinary, and the difficulty has shifted from getting grapes ripe to keeping acidity.