Decanter.com is reporting that "Germany is poised for its smallest wine harvest in a quarter of a century after cold weather at flowering and localized hailstorms affected production." The article adds that, “According to the German Wine Institute (DWI), quality will be ‘good,’ and the wines will be less full-bodied than recent vintages, exhibiting greater freshness and fruitiness.”
What’s important here is to realize that this is not necessarily bad news for consumers, at least in terms of the nature of the wines they’ll drink. After all, though many consumers have gotten used to full-bodied, rich wines from all over the world in recent years, an occasional turn away from that style, and back to a less-unctuous, less-giving one, represents a potentially welcome change.
I touched on this topic last week in my post about the 2003s from Bordeaux and the ways in which they are, in many cases, maturing much quicker than initially anticipated. So while wines that aren’t quite as generous in their youth may initially be off-putting, they aren’t necessarily doomed to obscurity. And with the way ratings work, expect these “fresher” wines to garner lower scores, which should make them less expensive and, therefore, fairly good bargains.
Sometimes, good news comes cloaked in bad.
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