Germany’s most grown grapes

In our last Brief we wrote about the most popular grape varieties grown in Germany. The figures came from a print magazine but after looking at them a little more closely we thought they looked a bit peculiar (as did some of our readers!). So we checked instead the statistics from Deutsche Weininstitut:

These figures are from 2008 and in % of total area.

— White grape varieties

1. Riesling: 21.9%
2. Müller-Thurgau 13.4%
3. Silvaner 5.1%
4. Ruländer 4.4%
5. Weissburgunder 3.6%
6. Kerner 3.6%
7. Bacchus 2.0%
8. Scheurebe 1.6%
9. Chardonnay 1.1%
10. Gutedel 1.1%

Total area for white grapes: 63.6%

— Red grape varieties

1. Spätburgunder 11.5%
2. Dornfelder 7.9%
3. Portugiese 4.3%
4. Trollinger 2.4%
5. Schwarzriesling 2.3%
6. Regent 2.1%
7. Lemberger 1.7%
8. Acolon 0.5%
9. Merlot 0.4%

Total area for red grapes: 36.4%