Feb 5, 2016

Franconian wine boarded the Ark of Taste


In one of my early posts I told you about a very special wine from Franconia, called “Alter Satz”. The specialty of this wine is that it is vinified from a great variety of grapes -35 in total - which grow together in a single vineyard and are harvested and vinified together. This viticulture is known as “Gemischter Satz” (mixed planting).

Two typical Franconian Bocksbeutel wine bottles filled with a special wine called Alter Satz
Alter fränkischer Satz
What in the distant past was something like the perils insurance for the vintner to ensure that even in bad years he can harvest at least anything is nowadays a precious refuge of biodiversity. But there remained not many of those spots, because this doesn’t fit into a modernized, even industrialized viticulture. Especially in the German wine region of Franconia some vintners sustained such vineyards and preserved this tradition. Here this is called “Alter fränkischer Satz” and the Slow-Food organization recognized the deserving protection of it.

In the truest sense of the motto “eat and drink what you want to preserve” the Slow-Food Foundation for Biodiversity nominated the “Alter fränkischer Satz” as a new passenger to the Ark of Taste. The Ark of Taste lists more than 2000 heritage foods, plant and animal species from all over the world, which are at risk of disappearing. It focusses on the pleasure of good food with the commitment to the region it comes from and to the environment. By consuming those produce everyone can contribute to their preservation, because only if there is demand they will be produced. To be part of this Ark is a great honor for the tradition of Franconian winemaking.


You want to know how this wine tastes! Well that’s a pretty tough question and there is no easy answer. Take thirty and more grape varieties which are in different composition in each vineyard and in different degrees of ripeness. Harvest and vinify them together. Do I need to explain more? This is a too complex equation to solve. Each wine and each vintage is unique, and that’s what makes this so outstanding and worthy to preserve.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting - wine as it used to be. Fermented in barrels or?

    ReplyDelete