sec-tendre and feinherb (but not halbtrocken)

[Jeff Grossman]

The 'sec-tendre' style of Loire chenin has no legal definition. It usually means the wine is legally 'sec' (0-8 g/l RS) but it's in the higher end of the range (say, 5-8 g/l) and the maker thinks it shows.

The 'feinherb' style of German riesling also has no legal definition. It usually means the wine is not legally dry (0-9 g/l RS) but also doesn't make it all the way up to 'lieblich' (45 g/l). Some authors claim feinherb most often refers to wines on the lower end, some claim the higher end. I think I can tell the difference between riesling with 10g/l and riesling with 40 g/l but I have not paid attention really to how our favorite makers use the term.

The 'halbtrocken' style of German riesling, however, has a legal definition: a wine is halbtrocken if it has at least N g/l RS, where N is ten more than the TA g/l; and the absolute upper limit is 18 g/l RS. It's a sliding scale that allows more sugar if you have more acid to counteract it, but with a fairly low ceiling so nobody mistakes it for more-than-half sweet.

I am not a winemaker but I can see how those halbtrocken formulas are pretty restrictive. And, anyway, the law doesn't say what you can say about wines >18 and

 

[Oswaldo Costa]

A sec-tendre jeeb could be called Sec-tendre is the Night.

 

[MLipton]

Jeff, I'll defend the halbtrocken designation. The issue of perceived sweetness definitely depends on both RS and acidity, as many Canadian icewines make very clear. So, a classification of wines based solely on RS levels doesn't really nail down its perceived sweetness. The Prädikat system actually attempts to address that issue by focusing on must weight. Whether the halbtrocken designation really accomplishes that goal reasonable people can disagree about.

Mark Lipton
(Who doesn't love secs?)

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by MLipton:

(Who doesn't love secs?)

They say 1% of the population is asexual. [Insert wine pun here]

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by MLipton:
The issue of perceived sweetness definitely depends on both RS and acidity, as many Canadian icewines make very clear. So, a classification of wines based solely on RS levels doesn't really nail down its perceived sweetness.

In my reading, several authors wrote that halbtrocken had gotten a bad rep in the marketplace; another reason makers switched to saying feinherb.

But I'm all about the epiphenomenon: if halbtrocken was doing its job, there'd be no need to invent feinherb, eh?

 

[georg lauer]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

In my reading, several authors wrote that halbtrocken had gotten a bad rep in the marketplace; another reason makers switched to saying feinherb.

But I'm all about the epiphenomenon: if halbtrocken was doing its job, there'd be no need to invent feinherb, eh?

I have no doubt it was the marketing. In Germany, "trocken" became an absolute must for being able to sell a wine around 30+ years ago. Nobody wanted to be associated with the sweet domestic plonk from the 80s anymore and terrible but supposedly dry Pinot Grigio took over the market. In reality, most people still prefer something a little bit sweet and most "trocken" wines were dialed in at maximum allowable sweetness. I am pretty sure the idea was to give people something even a bit sweeter than that (as many actually like that) and use a name that suggests something dryer than it is. But the name just never took off.

 

[robert ames]

"The Prädikat system actually attempts to address that issue by focusing on must weight."

the pradikat system actually is worthless when it comes to giving any measure of how sweet a wine is.

it is a set of thresholds that must be passed on order to meet the various classification levels. a trokenbeerauslese (sp?) can legally be labelled as kabinett; it clears the must weight threshold for kebinett.

as things have warmed up wines that legally could have been labelled spatlese have been labelled kabinett because the producer needs to have a kabinett in the lineup. and nothing in this system gives any clue as to the residual sugar of the wine.

 

[Claude Kolm]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by MLipton:
The issue of perceived sweetness definitely depends on both RS and acidity, as many Canadian icewines make very clear. So, a classification of wines based solely on RS levels doesn't really nail down its perceived sweetness.

In my reading, several authors wrote that halbtrocken had gotten a bad rep in the marketplace; another reason makers switched to saying feinherb.

But I'm all about the epiphenomenon: if halbtrocken was doing its job, there'd be no need to invent feinherb, eh?

Halbtocken is a legally defined term, feinherb is not. It was not all that unusual to have an off-dry wine that did not fit the legal parameters of halbtrocken, and it was then left in labelling limbo. Feinherb resolved the problem.