What is feinherb wine?

"Feinherb" is showing up on more and more German labels, including two of the wines we import. The word is not in German wine law. Trocken and halbtrocken are legally defined, down to the grams of residual sugar per litre. Feinherb is the producer's own word, used for wines in the borderland around off-dry, often with a small step more sweetness.

Sweetness is not the same as sweet

It is easy to read "off-dry" as "sweet wine for people who don't like wine". That gets it backwards. A Mosel Riesling carries a lot of acidity, and a few grams of residual sugar are not decoration: the sweetness rounds off the acid without the wine losing its freshness. The result often reads as juicy rather than sweet. Try a feinherb next to a trocken from the same producer and you will hear what the sugar does: it softens the sternness and lifts the fruit.

This is also why feinherb works so well with food that is hard on dry wine. Chilli and spice amplify both acidity and alcohol. A little residual sweetness absorbs the blow. Asian food, shellfish with heat, blue cheese: this is feinherb territory.

Two feinherb wines in our selection

Brauneberger Kammer Feinherb from Paulinshof is a Spätlese feinherb from the Kammer vineyard in Brauneberg, owned outright by the Jüngling family. The site has history: Thomas Jefferson tasted wine from here in 1788 and noted its quality in his diary. The wine sits at 11.5% alcohol, with green apples, citrus and a hint of honey.

Rotliegendes Riesling from Engel in Rheinhessen carries feinherb in the producer's own name for the wine. Rotliegendes is the red, iron-rich Permian rock beneath the parcel, and the wine shows a spiced nose of yellow fruit and orange peel.

You will find both in our white wine selection, available through Vinmonopolet's ordering range.

In short

Feinherb is not a legal category but a signal from the producer: a little more sweetness than the off-dry limit, in balance with the acidity. For the full label dictionary, we cover trocken, Kabinett and Spätlese in a separate guide.