Let’s talk about Sekt, baby
When the wine trade looks back on the 2010s, sparkling wine will likely be remembered as the dominant force of the decade – a juggernaut that now looks set to continue into the 2020s.
Demand for fizz is booming, with global consumption expected to grow a further 8.6% by 2020, according to Vinexpo’s 2017 Global Wine report. The UK is still the category’s top market for sparkling wine by volume, with consumption expected to increase by 18.1% by 2020.
Germany, the second-biggest market, is expected to remain flat, falling by 0.8%, while in the US, the third-biggest market, consumption is expected to increase by 24.1% by 2020. Other booming markets for fizz include include China, Russia, Japan and Austria, whose consumption of nine-litre cases of sparkling wine is expected to rise by 43.6%, 31.9%, 10% and 12.6% respectively by 2020.
While the world might be drinking more fizz than ever, competition among producers for a slice of the pie is equally strong. The success of Prosecco has served as a springboard for some producers – a valuable tool to help launch the sparkling wine category into the hearts and minds of consumers.
Silvano Brescianini, vice president of the Franciacorta consorzio, believes the success of Prosecco has “paved the way” for Franciacorta in the UK. “We’re not in competition with Prosecco,” he told the drinks business this year. “Its success in the UK and around the world has paved the way for us and has done a lot to create an interest in sparkling wines outside of Champagne. Prosecco has brought millions of consumers to bubbles, and I’m thankful for that.” Cava, English sparkling wine and even Champagne could also stand to benefit from the ‘Prosecco effect’, harnessing consumers’ increasing and, in some cases, newfound fascination with fizz to encourage them to trade up or across the category.
But what of German Sekt?
PIONEERING ROLE
Flying under the radar, it is a seemingly forgotten sub-section of the sparkling wine category, misunderstood and maligned because of its association with entry-level fizz made in bulk from imported base wines.
There’s much more to Sekt than the bland, semi-sweet commercial examples that still permeate the industry. A quiet revolution is bubbling away, with an increasing number of premium growers working to raise the category’s potential and recover its reputation.
“In the past, Sekt has mostly meant gallons of fizzy, sweetish plonk, but the market has changed enough for this term to cover quality sparkling wine as well,” says German wine expert Anne Krebiehl MW. “What has happened to German Sekt in the past decade is nothing short of amazing.
Winemakers have re-discovered the possibilities of quality sparkling wine, and while the largest part of the market is still high-volume FMCG-style Sekt, there is now a significant and growing niche of fine Sekt. On every trip I discover more worthwhile fizz.”
German Sekt classifications
Crémant – traditional-method Sekt aged for a minimum of 12 months on the lees.
Driving this growing niche for premium Sekt is not only winemakers’ growing knowledge and experience of sparkling wine production, but their ambition to raise the quality and reputation of the category. It’s not just smaller producers that are catching onto this, with larger producers also recognising the need to improve the quality of their offer.
“In Germany, we see a strong trend for premiumisation and individualisation – both trends go hand in hand,” says Klaus Kürten, senior vice president of Henkell & Co. Global, whose premium Sekt brands include Adam Henkell, MengerKrug and Fürst von Metternich. “Germany, as the biggest sparkling wine market in the world, could have a pioneering role, and we expect to see these trends also in other markets abroad in future.” Nevertheless, Sekt remains a tiny proportion of Germany’s total wine production, with the vast majority produced using the Charmat or tank method and undergoing very little ageing.
In 2016, Germany produced around 330 million bottles of Sekt – an increase of 1.3 % on 2015 – according to the Verband Deutscher Sektkellereien (German Sekt Federation).
This compares with the 1.2 billion bottles of German wine produced in total in Germany in 2015, according to the German Wine Institute. Of that volume, Germany consumes the vast majority, with a comparatively tiny proportion exported and an even tinier slice of that volume considered premium. As far as the market for premium Sekt goes, Germany is “starting from scratch”, says wine educator Romana Echensperger MW, with the market becoming increasingly divided between mass produced sparklers and premium Sekt, which she ascribes to “Winzersekt” growers – a classification similar to grower Champagne.
“Everything has to be learned,” she says. “First of all, how to make the right base wine for Sekt. We also need to look at pressing, especially important for Riesling to prevent petrol notes, get the right SO2 levels and avoid phenols. We are also looking at nitrogen management in the first and second fermentation, and so on. In German universities, the knowledge taught about sparkling [winemaking] is very rural; the universities don’t teach the subtleties. So the pioneers have to learn by doing – asking Champagne producers and by doing their own research.
We are on a good track, but it is a bit like Spätburgunder in the 1990s. A lot of ambition, but not yet the self-evidence or knowhow.”
TOP TALENT
Certainly, the winemaking talent is there. Mark Barth, second-generation winemaker at Barth Winery in Rheingau, was the first to create a sparkling wine from a VDP.Grosses Gewächs, circumventing the fact that Sekt is currently not part of the VDP classification system.
Its sparkling wines are made in the traditional method, aged on their lees for 18-36 months, then hand riddled before being disgorged. In 2013, former Bollinger winemaker Mathieu Kauffmann upped sticks and moved to German estate Reichsrat von Buhl in Pfalz.
A champion of premium Sekt, this year Kauffmann will launch his first “big” von Buhl Sekt after four years of preparation. “It will be a 2013 Reichsrat von Buhl Rosé Prestige, a pure Pinot Noir saignée, fermented in both oak and stainless steel, then blended as a “best of” of all the barrels, then 40 months on the lees in the bottle,” explains Kauffmann.
“Small production, 5,000 bottles. It’s a totally different price range [£60-£70] than the other three Sekts that we already have on the market, but it’s my ‘best-of version’ of Sekt at von Buhl.” Its launch marks the start of a small series of prestige Sekts that will be released by von Buhl in the coming years, with up to 10 years on lees, from its Pechstein single vineyard. But while the ambition, quality and interest in the category is growing, albeit slowly, convincing the domestic market, and international consumers, to pay more for Sekt will be a longer burn. “The name ‘Sekt’ means a lot of different things, from €3 (£2.69) to €60 (£53.74),” says Kauffmann. “It can be both Charmat and traditional method bottle fermentation. It’s difficult to give an impression of style and quality. I think that the majority is too bitter, too sweet and too young. But that’s all related to the price point. If you pay more, you’ll get better quality.”
UK retailer Laithwaite’s carries just one German Sekt in its portfolio (a 2014 von Buhl Brut, as it happens, priced at £18.99), deliberately selected for its premium position, says wine buyer Beth Willard. At this price point, it plays slightly lower than the English sparkling wines and Champagnes in its portfolio, making it more competitive, but higher than an average DOC Prosecco. However, Willard admits that German Sekt as a category “doesn’t really exist in the minds of the majority of consumers.
When you talk about bringing a new sparkling wine into the range it’s not to compete but to expand the range and show a difference,” adds Willard. “A really big advantage of Sekt is that there are a growing number of quality producers that are making wines with a lot of complexity that can be sold perhaps more easily than other sparkling customers that traditionally drink Champagne. That’s not to say that it’s like for like, but there’s a lot to play off in terms of complexity and flavours – but it’s a challenging sector.
Obviously, the growth of English sparkling wine is great, but it makes it more difficult for other sparkling wines to get into that segment. For me, the gap and the opportunity for German Sekt is at this level of quality. The volume will be small, but the quality is fantastic and customers keep coming back year after year.”
MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB
Not only does German Sekt have a quality mission to conquer, and pricing to consider, but also a marketing mountain to climb before it can fully establish itself as a contender in the international sparkling wine market.
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Earlier this year, Henkell & Co. opened its Sektmanufaktur winery, described as an in-house Sekt production boutique, at its headquarters in Wiesbaden, where it offers seminars, workshops and tastings as part of its mission to inspire people about Sekt. “Producers can strengthen the appeal of Sekt by producing top-quality wines, and also by communicating and talking about this quality: showing people how much experienced knowledge and competence is needed to produce high-quality Sekt, but also which differences in quality exist,” adds Kürten.
However, the fact that the meaning of the term ‘Sekt’ carries very different connotations in different markets alone is, in itself, a barrier to success. “I am glad that the producers are sticking to the time-honoured term ‘Sekt’, and in a way it is pricing that does the market positioning,” notes Kriebhiel when asked how producers might raise its status.
“Premium Sekt naturally finds its way into the right channels where it can be hand-sold – in the independent off-trade or the on-trade. The answer to this question is also very different depending on whether you ask a German: to Germans the term ‘Sekt’ has baggage (you can buy a bottle of Sekt for as little as €3.99 a bottle); whereas to UK consumers it probably means nothing.
With Austria also sticking to the name ‘Sekt’ in its new classification, the term is once again invested with value.”
PREMIUM SEKT
Better communication of its classification systems is one way that producers are seeking to differentiate premium Sekt from the mass market. Sekt isn’t part of Germany’s VDP system – a grower’s association made up of the best estates, with their wines ranked on a four-tier quality pyramid.
However, many producers are working to establish a VDP Sekt category. “In a few years there is potential for this, as the knowledge about winemaking increases and the styles become clearer,” says Echensperger.
“It would be great to differentiate between, for example, a VDP.Gutswein Sekt (where maybe tank method is allowed, and the wine is made of different varieties like Muskattrollinger, Scheurebe, and so on) and VDP.Große Lage (traditional method and [specific] varieties).
That would make sense to differentiate the real premium stuff from the quaffable styles to command higher prices.” Others are less optimistic about the potential of a Sekt VDP classification to raise the reputation of the category. “We do not see a need to add the category Sekt to the VDP system, as this could be more confusing for the consumers than providing clarification,” says Kürten. “Sekt stands for a celebration and the joy of life, and we think that the purchase and the final consumption of Sekt should not be too complicated.”
For Krebiehl, the already-established Winzersekt classification has been the most influential in creating an identifiable category for quality Sekt. “Winemakers have discovered Sekt for themselves and are now crafting exquisite styles of Sekt: there already is a definition of Winzersekt in German, meaning estate-grown, bottle-fermented Sekt, and it is this segment that has taken off, has already delivered great wines and is, to my mind, currently the most interesting development in the German wine market.”
Single-vineyard Sekt is another area of investigation. Last year, Henkell & Co’s Fürst von Metternich brand celebrated its 200th year, celebrating with the launch of a limited edition 2014 Fürst von Metternich Brut Sekt, made with Riesling sourced from the group’s top wine estate Schloss Johannisberg. While more a question of style than quality, the single-vineyard concept can be a powerful tool in raising the premium of a Sekt in the minds of consumers.
“We have, like in Champagne, potential for good blends and very good single vineyards,” says Kauffmann. “I am working with both. Like in the past of von Buhl, I am preparing a Pechstein single vineyard, but we make it differently.
Great terroir deserves exceptional treatment. So we pick one entire hectare just to produce base wines for a sparkling single-vineyard Pechstein.”
The first of Kauffmann’s single-vineyard Pechstein Sekt will be the 2013 vintage, with plans to later release an expression with 10 years on its lees in 2024. Echensperger agrees that the potential for single-vineyard Sekt to elevate the category has not yet been fully explored.
“A sparkling Riesling from the middle Mosel, from Markus Molitor for example, tastes totally different than a sparkling Riesling from the terraced Mosel, such as Heymann-Löwenstein. I tasted many of them – there is definitely potential – especially when it comes to Riesling Sekt.”
Riesling remains “the king” of Sekt – a grape that Krebiehl says has seen a “real revival” in recent years – however, Sekt based on Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay is showing well and “more comparable internationally than the more pronounced Rieslingsekt. I have tasted some Sekts made from very aromatic varieties, like Muscat or Muscat and Gewürztraminer blends, but they have not convinced me,” says Krebiehl.
“Another thing that the Germans appear to be perfecting at the moment is red Pinot Noir Sekt – a novelty but quite fun when it works.”
A rush to buy German Sekt will not happen overnight, if ever. Kauffmann predicts that it will take at least another 10 to 20 years for the quality and marketing of Sekt to fully align to give the category a fighting chance. But there is growing and justified optimism in the potential for Germany to expand its sparkling horizons, and consumer perceptions, beyond that of “fizzy, sweetish plonk”.
EXPORT EXPANSION
“We are seeing more and more growers focusing on sparkling wine production only, for example Krack, Griesel, Raumland and Strauch,” notes Echensperger, “and they are definitely interested in expanding into export markets.”
As for Henkell, more than 60% of its turnover is generated in international markets, with the expansion of its export markets a “permanent and ongoing goal”. Consider also the current dominance of the sparkling wine category, and you have a strong case for future prosperity of German Sekt. As Kriebhiel notes: “Sparkling wine is the only growing segment in the industry.” But, as with any bandwagon, knowing when to jump on, or off, is crucial.
“Germany has the climate and scale to naturally make great base wines for Sekt with broad appeal at various price points – with the right packaging and at the right price point there should be serious potential.”
