Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese

The six Prädikate rank the sugar in the juice at harvest, measured in degrees Öchsle — they are a ripeness scale, not a sweetness scale. Kabinett sits at the bottom, Trockenbeerenauslese at the top, and what happens during fermentation is a separate decision entirely.

Which is why a Spätlese can arrive bone dry while a Kabinett beside it tastes off-dry. Nothing on the front label is obliged to warn you. For decades this has been the single biggest reason people give up on German wine, and it is about to change.

Read the alcohol before you read the Prädikat

The fastest way to know how sweet a German Riesling will be is to ignore the Prädikat and look at the alcohol. Sugar becomes alcohol during fermentation, so the two move in opposite directions.

• 7.5–9% — the yeast was stopped early. Expect real sweetness, balanced by high acidity.
• 10–11% — off-dry. Often labelled feinherb or halbtrocken.
• 11.5–13% — fermented out. Dry, and usually says trocken.

That one habit will get you further than memorising the ladder below.

The six Prädikate

The exact threshold is fixed region by region and grape by grape, and rises as you move south from the Mosel into the warmer growing areas. Two rules apply throughout: chaptalisation — adding sugar to the juice to raise alcohol — is banned outright for Prädikatswein, and every lot must pass a chemical analysis and an official tasting panel before it is granted the AP number printed on the label.

Note that Eiswein shares its must weight with Beerenauslese. The difference is not ripeness but ice: the water in the berry stays frozen in the press, so only concentrated juice runs out.

Why Kabinett trocken is disappearing

Germany rewrote its wine law on 27 January 2021 and gave the trade a transition period to move across. Two things change when it closes.

The Prädikat terms become reserved for wines that keep some residual sweetness, so Kabinett trocken and Spätlese trocken stop existing. And a Burgundian pyramid of origin takes over as the main quality signal — Anbaugebiet, then Region, then Ort, then Einzellage, with the finest single vineyards allowed to add Erste Lage and Grosse Lage.

In other words, dry German wine will be sold on where it grew, and the Prädikat finally becomes the sweetness cue everyone always assumed it was. If you have been using Spätlese to find dry Rheingau Riesling, that habit is on a timer.

Where the value actually is

Kabinett, and specifically Mosel Riesling Kabinett. It is the least fashionable rung, it costs a fraction of a Grosses Gewächs from the same estate, it sits around 8% alcohol, and good examples drink beautifully at fifteen years old. Very little else in wine offers that.

The common mistake is treating the ladder as a quality ranking and reaching for an Auslese to serve with dinner. An Auslese is usually too rich and too sweet for a main course. Point it at something fatty and salty instead — pork belly, a wedge of blue cheese — where the acidity has work to do, or pour it on its own after the plates have gone.