Philistine versus connoisseur? On the love of sweet wines

Sweet wines don't have a good reputation – everyone somehow associates them with a thick head or an undeveloped palate. But why is that?

In fact, this judgment directly reflects the difficulty of production, because sugar is known to be a flavor carrier. With a little more residual sweetness, one can certainly mask a not-quite-perfect quality in wine…

However, it is more than negligent to immediately conclude that a sweet wine always hides poor quality! And it's just as eccentric to only praise dry wines as high-quality... that's like only rating motocross bikes as "good" motorcycles because it places higher demands on the machine when you race through rough terrain. But maybe I just want to comfortably ride my Harley straight ahead. That doesn't challenge the machine manufacturers as much – but when I'm enjoying the ride, I don't care at all whether the production of the machine presented a particular challenge or not.

Ergo: We believe that personal taste matters. And we find the arrogance with which sweet wines are sometimes dismissed as truly infuriating. Fortunately, our customers agree – and purchase accordingly: Our best-selling red wine is the Dornfelder mild, and our Blanc de Noir (also mild) is one of our absolute customer favorites.

No wonder, we say, because high-quality sweet wines are fantastic and can be flexibly combined with a variety of dishes, e.g., in savory cuisine. The sweetness and spiciness balance each other out wonderfully. Try it!

And last but not least, even the critics agree that our sweet wines are sensational. That's why, just these days – drum roll! – we received a special award at this year's DLG National Wine Awards:

"Best Collection of Fruity White Wines 2025"

for our wines from the 2024 vintage

This award (quote) "underscores the award winner's work at the highest quality level across the entire range". In plain English: It's not just one wine that's great, no, they're all great!

Our five stars from the 2024 vintage, who jointly scooped up the prize, are:

• Muskateller

• Pinot Blanc semi-dry

• Scheurebe mild 1 liter

• Müller-Thurgau semi-dry 1 liter

• Riesling Kabinett

Order now

Two of these stars even surpassed themselves and additionally received the Gold Extra award:

• The Muskateller in the Bouquet-Aroma-Variety category, vintage 2024

  (if you don't know what a bouquet wine is, you can read about it here)

• The Riesling Kabinett in the Riesling fruity category, vintage 2024

Our winery as a whole was also rated very well again – we are once again among the top 100 wineries in Germany and, with our 42nd place, even made it into the top 50. The blind tasting is carried out by a broad jury (you can find more about the selection process here), and this year more than 4,000 wineries from Germany were compared.

We are overjoyed by this honest and genuine recognition of our performance and are now going to celebrate!

Oh, do you have another question? Do you want to know if only sugar determines the sweetness of a wine? Yes and no.

The legislator specifies three categories that are exclusively based on natural sugar content. This is therefore an analytical value from the laboratory; there's no beating around the bush, the facts are clear:

• dry: 0 - 9 grams / liter

• semi-dry: 9 - 18 grams / liter

• sweet: 18 - 45 grams / liter

• noble sweet: from 45 grams / liter

Find the error: In this analytical view, the acidity in the wine is not given any consideration, yet the play between acidity and residual sweetness is extremely important for the taste experience! You know the term "felt temperature", don't you? So it's actually 5 degrees, but it feels much colder... It's exactly the same with wine: If you only know the sugar level, you still don't know what the wine really tastes like. There's only one thing to do: try it yourself!

Take advantage of our current Christmas offers:

Best Collection: the five best wines in a package

Vertical Riesling Packages - 6 vintages at a special offer price

If you can't wait to taste the new 2025 vintage, you can strike now: Our Pinot Gris is freshly bottled and available from Thursday!

2025 Pinot Gris, order now.

In that spirit: Enjoy your wines however you want!

Your sweetly subtle Counts