The Wines of Luxembourg

It's time to travel to Luxembourg to drink the locally produced wine. Barely larger in area than Jacksonville, FL, and somewhat less populous than that sprawling city, it's also one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And, it has only one airport, so that's where we are flying in.

The weather here is quite cool, rarely getting up to 27C/80F during the summer, but generally staying above freezing during most of the winter, although temperatures do plummet on occasion. However, the all time record high temperature there is below 35C/95F while the record low is -17.8C/0F. It's a lowland country, and from a wine standpoint, perhaps the most important note is that it borders Germany along three rivers, one being the Mosel or Moselle.

The grapes grown here are almost exclusively white, Pinot Noir being the only red grape produced enough to make a data listing. Among the whites, the dominant grapes are Muller-Thurgau (originally bred by a man named Muller in the canton of Thurgau in Switzerland), Auxerrois Blanc, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Pinot Blanc, and a grape called Elbling that until I studied a bit about Luxembourgisch wine I had never heard of. You won't hear about it anymore either, at least not here.

What makes Luxembourgisch wine unique from any others that I know of, however, is its ranking system. It makes the purchase of the local wine somewhat idiot-proof, so to speak, because each bottling is pre-rated in order to achieve its labeling. This is unlike neighboring France, for example, where each estate has been classified according to the 1855 classification or some successor. Let's take a look.

Each wine is judged by an official national committee on a scale from 0 to 20. A wine that fails to score at least a 12.0 on that scale may not carry the official seal -- La Marque Nationale. It feels like being chastised in the wine world.

Any wine that is allowed to carry La Marque Nationale may be submitted for a second tasting before bottling. If that wine scores in the range of 14.0 to 15.9, it may carry the additional notation Vin Classé. Wines that score at least 16.0 in that second tasting may replace the Vin Classé labeling with Premier Cru. And, those Premier Cru wines may be submitted for a third tasting Wines that score 18 points or higher on their third tasting are classified as Grand Premier Cru.

The French are apparently bother by this because in their classification, only the finest estates, without regard to the wines they produce in any given year, may carry the classifications Premier Cru or Grand Premier Cru. The Luxembourgisch don't seem worried. They tend not to export to France anyway.