Dornfelder

Dornfelder was bred to solve one specific German complaint: that German red wine was too pale. August Herold created it at the Weinsberg institute in 1955 by crossing two earlier crossings, Helfensteiner and Heroldrebe, and he selected for colour above everything else. He named it after Immanuel Dornfeld, who founded the institute.

It worked. Dornfelder gives a genuinely dark wine with a deep violet rim, which in a country of light reds was a novelty, and it also ripens reliably and resists rot better than most. Plantings grew quickly through the 1980s and 1990s, and it is now the second most planted red grape in Germany after Spätburgunder.

Its style splits in two. Made simply it is soft, fruity and slightly sweet, sold in a screwcap bottle to be drunk cold and young, and much of the crop goes that way. Made with lower yields and some oak, mostly in the Pfalz and Rheinhessen, it becomes a firmer dry red with sour cherry, elderberry and a savoury edge. The grape is capable of both, so the label matters more than usual.