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| Rivaner (Müller-Thurgau) |
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white grapes variety which could fairly be said to have been the bane of German wine production but which is at long last on the wane. This mediocre crossing was developed in 1882 for entirely expedient reasons by a Dr. Hermann Müller, born in the Swiss canton of Thurgau but then working at the German viticultural school at GEISENHEIM. His understandable aim was to combine the qulity of the great RIESLING grape with the viticultural reliability, particulary the early ripening, of the SILVANER. Most of the variety´s synonyms (Rivaner in Luxembourg and Slovenia, Riesling-Sylvaner in New Zealand and Switzerland, Rizlingszilvani in Hungary) reflect this combination. Since then some authorities have argued that he actually crossed two strains of Riesling rather than, as he though, Riesling with Silvaner, and recent DNA FINGERPRINTING suggests that the variety is actually Riesling x CHASSELAS de Courtillier. Whatever the ingredients, the recipe resulted in a variety all to short on Riesling characteristics (indeed much shorter on such elegant raciness than the more recent crossings EHRENFELSER, KERNER, and well-ripened SCHEUREBE).
The vine certainly ripens early, even earlier than Silvaner. Unlike Riesling it can be grown anywhere, producing prodigious quantities (sometimes double Riesling´s common yield range of 80 to 110 hl/ha (4.6-6.3 tons/acre) of extremely dull, flabby wine. Müller-Thurgau usually has some vaguely aromatic quality, but the aroma can often be unattractively mousy in German´s high-yielding vineyards and is more reliably clean and pure in the variety´s other spheres of influence NEW ZEALAND and ALTO ADIGE, where growers are less demanding in terms of quantity.
Müller-Thurgau was not embraced by Germany´s growers until after the Second World War, when the need to rebuild the industry fast presumably gave this productive, easily grown vine allure. In the early 1970s it even overtook the great Riesling in total area planted (having for some time produced far more wine in total) and remained in that position throughout the 1980s, although by the end of that decade there were already signs of disaffection with the grape on which the great LIEBFRAUENMILCH industry was commercially based. Occasionally a German Müller-Thurgau could be said to express something - usually something territorial rather than anything inherent in the grape - but this bland vehicle for quantity above quality was substantially responsible for the decline in Germany´s reputation as a wine producer in the 1970s and early 1980s. Typically blended width a little of a more aromatic variety such as MORIO MUSKAT and width a great deal of
SÜSSRESERVE, Müller-Thurgau was transformed into oceans of QBA SUGARWATER labelled either LIEBFRAUENMILCH or one of the internationally recognized names such as Niersteiner, Bernkasteler or Piesporter. By the late 1990s Riesling was once again Germany´s most planted grape variety and plantings of Müller-Thurgau were only just over 22000 ha/54300 acres. It accounted for nearly 30 per cent of all Baden plantings, more than 40 per cent in Franken, but also 20 per cent of all vines in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer.
The wood is much softer than Riesling´s and can easily be damaged by hard winters. The grapes rot easily (as can be tasted in a number of examples from less successful years), and the vine is susceptible to DOWNY MILDEW, BLACK ROT, and, its own bane, ROTBRENNER, but it will continue to flourish while there is a market for cheap German wine.
Outside Germany it can taste quite palatable, if rarely exciting. A handful of Italians manage it in the Alto Adige where high altitudes keep the grapes on the wine for long enough for them to retain acidity while developing some perceptible fruit flavours. It is also increasingly planted in FRIULI and is grown as far south as EMILIA-ROMAGNA. This foreign-sounding variety, sometimes called Riesling-Sylvaner, has its followers among Italy´s fashion-conscious connoisseurs.
The variety thrives all over central and eastern Europe. It is planted, appropriately enough, in SWITZERLAND, playing an increasingly important role in the vineyards of the German-speaking area in the north and east. Only the native GRÜNER VELTINER is more important in AUSTRIA, where it still comprises nearly one vine in every ten but is rerely responsible for wines of much instrinsic interest. Across Austria´s southern border, it is also grown in SLOVENIA and is even more important to the east and north of Austria in CZECHOSLOVAKIA and, particularly, HUNGARY, which is probably the world´s second most important grower of this uninspiring grape. As Rizlingszilvani, it covers thousands of hectares lakesful of flabby Badacsonyi Rizlingszilvani.
Müller-Thurgau was planted enthusiastically by New Zealand grape growers on the recommendation of visiting German experts as a preferable substitution for the HYBRIDS that were all too prevalent in the country´s nascent wine industry of the 1950s and 1960s. Chardonnay overtook the crossing´s total area (1300 ha/3210 acres) in 1992, however, as it is a far more valuable crop. It would be difficult to argue that New Zealand´s "Riesling-Sylvaner" is ever a very complex wine but is does usually display a freshness lacking in German examples, despite its customary similar reliance on Süssreserve or SWEET RESERVE.
Elsewhere in the New World, most growers are not driven by the need for early ripening varieties (and would find the flab in the resultant wine a distinct disadvantage), although some Oregon growers have experimented successfully with it, and fine examples have been produced in the Puget Sound vineyards of western Washington state.
Northern Europe´s two smallest and coolest wine producers, ENGLAND and LUXEMBOURG, depend heavily on Müller-Thurgau, which (called Rivaner in Luxembourg) is the most planted variety in each country.
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