What is Grosses Gewächs (GG)?

GG stands for Grosses Gewächs, "great growth". It is the term for dry wine from a classified top vineyard, and the closest comparison is a Burgundy Grand Cru. Where the Prädikate Kabinett and Spätlese tell you how ripe the grapes were, GG tells you where they grew.

The pyramid behind it

The term comes from the producers' association VDP, which divides vineyards into four tiers:

• Gutswein, wine from the estate's own vineyards, with only producer and region on the label
• Ortswein, wine from the best vineyards in a single village
• Erste Lage, single vineyards one tier below the top
• Grosse Lage, the highest-classified vineyards, demarcated parcel by parcel

Dry wine from a Grosse Lage is called Grosses Gewächs and is bottled with the GG logo. The higher up the pyramid, the stricter the rules: in a Grosse Lage the yield is limited to 50 hectolitres per hectare, against 60 in an Erste Lage and 75 for Ortswein and Gutswein. The grapes are picked by hand.

Why it arrives later

A white GG is released no earlier than 1 September of the year after harvest, so it gets roughly a year before it reaches the market. The reds wait another year. That means the GGs released in September 2026 are whites from 2025.

Not only the VDP

The VDP is not the only association that uses the term. On the Mosel, the association Der Ring has its own Grosses Gewächs. If a label says GG, it is worth checking which association stands behind it.

GG in our selection

Brauneberger Kammer GG from Paulinshof is a "Großes Gewächs Der Ring Mosel": dry Riesling from Kammer, a steep slate vineyard owned outright by the Jüngling family, hand-picked from old vines. Thomas Jefferson tasted wine from here in 1788 and noted its quality in his diary.

In short

GG means dry wine from a top-classified vineyard, with low yields, hand harvesting and a year of maturation before sale. How GG fits together with Kabinett, trocken and the vineyard name is covered in our guide to German wine labels.