Müller-Thurgau

Müller-Thurgau is the first deliberately bred grape variety to become commercially important, and for a time it was the most planted grape in Germany. Hermann Müller made the crossing at Geisenheim in 1882 and took it home to Thurgau in Switzerland. He believed he had crossed riesling with silvaner. DNA testing in 1998 found the second parent to be madeleine royale instead.

The point of it was ripeness without risk. It ripens two to three weeks before riesling and will crop heavily on flat, fertile, frost-prone land where riesling struggles. That made it the engine of cheap German wine in the 1970s, when it filled the tanks behind Liebfraumilch, and it left the grape with a reputation it has never fully shed. Germany has more than halved its plantings since 1990.

The wine is soft, low in acid, faintly floral and grapey, and meant to be drunk within a year or two. It is best where growers restrict the yield: the Südtirol in Italy grows it at high altitude and gets something genuinely fresh, and the Czech Republic, Austria, Luxembourg and England all make honest versions. In England it is now giving way to the sparkling wine varieties.