Top 100 wines of Sachsen
Discover the top 100 best wines of Sachsen as well as the best winemakers in the region. Explore the varietals of the wines that are popular of Sachsen and the best vintages to taste in this region.
Discovering the wine region of Sachsen
Sachsen (Saxony) in eastern Germany is one of the world's Northernmost wine regions, located at a latitude of 51 degrees north. The roughly 493 hectares (1,218ac) of vines in the region are planted aLong a 25 mile (40km) stretch of the Elbe river valley, from Pillnitz near the city of Dresden, in a north-easterly direction to Diesbar-Seusslitz, just downstream of the city of Meissen.
Despite its northerly location, Sachsen has a long history of viticulture, with the earliest documents of wine-growing around Meissen dating to 1161. Since Germany's reunification in 1990, great enthusiasm has gone into building and developing the Sachsen wine industry; there are many part-time growers and an enthusiastic local market.
Investment is needed to boost quality however, and with yields roughly half that of other German wine regions, investors' enthusiasm has not matched that of the growers.
Sachsen's Climate is cold-moderate continental with an annual mean temperature of 10° celsius (50°F). The average temperature in January is -0. 5° celsius (31°F) and in July it is 18° celsius (64°F).
However, winter temperatures can drop as low as -28° celsius (18°F).
Sachsen's wines are also influenced by the soils and geology of the Elbe Valley. Carboniferous granite, and feldspar with some mica and quartz are found, as is sandstone. This is often is overlayered by loess, clay and sand deposits.
News from the vineyard of Sachsen
Walls: Brézème and Seyssuel – sleeping beauties of the Northern Rhône
By 1965, the vineyards of Condrieu had largely been abandoned – phylloxera and two world wars had decimated the place and its people. There were just 8ha of vines remaining on these granite slopes. If it weren’t for the hard work of a few steadfast vignerons, the appellation might have disappeared entirely, reclaimed by the forest. Thankfully, Condrieu survived and has since flourished – but great appellations have been lost before. We know this because some have recently been rediscovered. In f ...
Bordeaux ‘Act for Change’ symposium
The focus of the symposium, unsurprisingly, was on the challenges posed by climate change. As if to illustrate the immediacy of the threat, the symposium took place during a heatwave, with temperatures of over 40°C in Bordeaux and extreme weather events recorded across the coountry: parts of southwest France saw violent storms and winds of 112kph on the evening of 20 June, while vineyards across the Médoc and St-Emilion were damaged by hailstones ‘the size of golfballs’. As Olivier Bernard of D ...
Burgundy 2020 releases tap into ‘insatiable’ global demand
Liv-ex said the trade ‘is reporting strong sales’ of Burgundy 2020 wines following the first en primeur releases in recent weeks, despite higher prices. Decanter’s Charles Curtis MW rated Côte d’Or reds and whites highly in his Burgundy 2020 overview, published earlier this month. Liv-ex’s new Burgundy report also suggested that getting hold of some wines has become even more difficult. ‘The trade continues to report an insatiable global buying appetite that has led to reduced alloca ...