Dornfelder

Dornfelder is a modern German crossing, created in 1955 at the viticultural institute in Weinsberg by August Herold, and it is one of the very few twentieth-century breeding programmes to produce a genuinely successful wine grape. It was bred to solve a specific German problem: red wine from cool climates tended to be pale and thin, and growers wanted something with colour.

It delivered that emphatically. Dornfelder produces deeply pigmented wine — far darker than Pinot Noir or Trollinger — with black cherry, blackberry, elderberry and a floral note, soft tannins and moderate acidity. It ripens reliably in German conditions and resists rot better than most, which is what took it from experimental crossing to the country's second most planted red variety in under fifty years.

Most of it is made in a straightforward, fruit-forward, faintly sweet style for early drinking, and that is the version most people encounter. It is pleasant and uncomplicated and has done the grape's reputation no favours.

The interesting Dornfelder is made in Rheinhessen and the Pfalz by producers who crop it low and age it in oak, producing a dry, structured wine with genuine depth and a smoky, savoury edge. Those wines age for several years and make the case that the variety has been underestimated because of how it is usually handled rather than what it is capable of.

It is also grown in England, Switzerland and Japan, always for the same reason: it gives colour and ripeness where the climate makes both difficult.