Pfalz

The Historisches Museum der Pfalz in Speyer holds the "Römerwein", a bottle about 1,700 years old found in 1867 in a Roman grave south-west of Speyer, which it calls the oldest grape wine north of the Alps to survive in liquid form. Its record notes that similar bottles were found at Ruppertsberg in 1808 and Großkarlbach in 1838. The museum's wine collection, founded in 1910, describes itself as the world's first wine museum, and Pfalz estates were among the four groups that founded the forerunner of the VDP in the same year.

After a very large harvest in 1934 and the ban on Jewish wine merchants, prices fell, and the Nazi authorities created the Deutsche Weinstraße as a promotion. Gauleiter Josef Bürckel spoke at its opening on 19 October 1935; a wooden gate stood at Schweigen from 1934, and the stone wine gate there was built in 1936. The German Wine Institute calls it the first and best-known German wine route, about 85 km long from Bockenheim to Schweigen.

The specification places the Haardt edge and the Vorderpfalz lowland in the Upper Rhine Graben. Vines grow only in the Vorderpfalz, from the edge of the Pfälzerwald across the Haardt to the plain. The mean altitude is about 170 m. Slopes reach 60% at the forest edge but are mostly under 10% on the loess-covered ridges and plateaus; the average gradient is 4.5% and the mean exposure 140°, south-east.

The Haardt edge is the fault zone itself, a few kilometres wide and geologically very mixed. Most vines stand on loess or loess loam, which has formed Parabraunerde, chernozem and pararendzina soils; next come Quaternary river loams, sands and gravels, then Tertiary limestones and marls. Rotliegend and Buntsandstein sandstones are rare, Muschelkalk, Keuper and Jurassic limestones rarer, and volcanic rocks isolated. The mean temperature is about 10 °C (14.7 °C in the growing season), rising from west to east; about 655 mm of rain falls, most in the south-west. The German Wine Institute adds that the forested hills shelter the vineyards.

The specification describes white wines, about 60% of production, with clear fruit: apple, peach, muscat and rose, and exotic notes of grapefruit, pineapple or passion fruit. A balanced acid-sugar ratio gives tension and liveliness, and a fuller body with moderate acidity suits them to dry styles. Red wines, depending on variety, show cherry, strawberry, blackberry, cassis and elder, with mild acidity and soft but marked tannin. Rosé, pressed light from red grapes, is fresher and lower in alcohol and tannin. The specification links the range of aromas to the many soil profiles and to growers who work large, contiguous plots that can be mechanised.

Pfalz is a protected designation of origin for Qualitätswein, Prädikatswein, Sekt b.A. and Qualitätsperlwein b.A., and its wines may be used for Crémant; the technical file also lists Riesling-Hochgewächs and Classic. It sets a maximum yield of 105 hl/ha. Minimum must weights for Qualitätswein are 60° Oechsle for Riesling, Portugieser and Morio-Muskat, 68° for Dornfelder and 62° for other grapes. Kabinett needs 73° for Riesling, Müller-Thurgau and Silvaner (76° otherwise), Spätlese 85° for Riesling (90°), Auslese 92° for Riesling (100°), Beerenauslese and Eiswein 120° and Trockenbeerenauslese 150°.

The German Wine Institute gives 23,698 ha in two districts, Mittelhaardt-Deutsche Weinstraße and Südliche Weinstraße, with red grapes on 39% in 2022. Riesling covers 25.2%, followed by Dornfelder (10.7%), Grauburgunder (9%), Spätburgunder (7.2%) and Müller-Thurgau (6.9%); Weißburgunder, Portugieser, Kerner and Chardonnay are also grown.