German Sparkling

THE PRODUCTION OF SPARKLING WINE IN GERMANY DATES BACK TO 1826, WHEN GEORG CHRISTIAN KESSLER, WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY WORKED IN THE CHAMPAGNE HOUSE VEUVE CLIQUOT FOUNDED G. C. KESSLER & CO. IN ESSLINGEN AM NECKAR.

WORDS RACHEL STEVENSON

UNTIL 1919, GERMAN PRODUCERS CALLED their sparkling wines ‘Mosseux’, ‘Sect’ or ‘Champagne’. However, the Treaty of Versailles put a stop to this, banning the use of the name ‘Champagne’ long before the European Union regulations prevented wines outside of Champagne being named after the region.

Sekt, the German word for sparkling wine, was originally coined in Berlin in 1825, becoming common in use by the 1890s. Although Germany has long attempted to have the name Sekt only able to be used for wines produced in countries with German as an official language, these regulations were annulled by the European Court of Justice in 1975.

As well as this, in the 1970s, a legal decision was made to abolish large producers monopoly on Sekt production, instead allowing smaller winegrowers and winemaking cooperatives to both produce and sell sparkling wines. Due to this, the name Sekt today applies to various quality levels of sparkling wines.

The majority of Sekt is produced using the Charmat method with a small amount of premium Sekt produced using the methode traditionelle. Sekt houses do not own their own vineyards, instead purchasing their base wines, over three thirds of which is imported from Italy, France and Spain. However, a sparkling wine can only be called a Deutscher Sekt if it is made using 100 per cent German based wines. ❧