Wines from the Nahe

About wines from the Nahe

With just over 4,000 hectares, the Nahe is one of Germany's medium-sized wine-growing regions, stretching from its source in the Hunsrück to its confluence with the Rhine near Bingen. This region boasts a rich wine history. Monzingen was first mentioned as an important wine-growing town in 778, and just a few kilometers further northeast, where the Glan flows into the Nahe, ancient traces of wine history can be found at the Disibodenberg Monastery. Here, winegrowing on the Klosterberg is documented dating back to the 11th century. At the same time, however, the region has a far less illustrious history than the Rheingau or the Moselle. This is partly due to the fact that until 1930, wines from the Nahe were simply labeled and sold as Rhine wines. To this day, a large portion of the grapes produced end up on supermarket shelves as mass-produced goods. Nevertheless, the Nahe is home to some of the world's biggest, internationally renowned wines, particularly when it comes to Riesling.

Geological diversity and mild temperatures

The majority of Nahe wine comes from white grape varieties (around 75%), led by Riesling, followed by Müller-Thurgau, Silvaner, and Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris. Red wine is made predominantly from Dornfelder and, to a lesser extent, Pinot Noir. The Nahe is characterized by the pronounced heterogeneity of its soils. The well-known Oberhäuser Brücke site, for example, despite its small size, has four different soil types. This is one of the reasons why the region's interesting wines are characterized by their pronounced minerality. These representatives are generally Rieslings, which come from steep slopes or terraced vineyards and often grow on formations of sandstone, porphyry, and slate. Ventilation is ideal in the most renowned sites, annual rainfall is low, and temperatures remain mild well into autumn. These are perfect conditions for the late-ripening Riesling, which produces some wines here that are among the absolute world-class of this grape variety.

Successes in the shadow of their big siblings

Also internationally renowned are the Dönnhoff (Hermannshöhle, Dellchen), Schäfer-Fröhlich (Felseneck, Stromberg), and Emrich-Schönleber (Halenberg) wineries, to name just a few. Despite the impressive successes of recent decades, the Nahe region continues to eke out the underdog role among Germany's top wine-growing regions; the reputation of the old grandees of the Mosel and Rheingau, as well as the explosion of world-class wines from Rheinhessen over the past three decades, seem to overshadow them. Given all the magnificent wines emerging from the Nahe and Glan regions, this is quite surprising.