Bred in 1955 to give German reds the deep colour their cool climate rarely allowed, Dornfelder became one of the country's great modern success stories. It ripens reliably, resists rot better than most, and pours a wine of genuinely dark hue — a rarity among German crossings — full of blackberry, sour cherry and elderberry.
Most of it is drunk young, soft and fruity, but ambitious growers in the Pfalz and Rheinhessen give it barrel age and coax out real structure. In a country long defined by its white grapes, Dornfelder is now firmly the second most planted red, and the friendly face of German red wine.
Where it grows
Share of the region's vineyard planted with this grape