Winemeister

Like all of former West Germany's wine regions, Franken is located along one of the tributaries of the Rhine river, in this case the river Main that runs from East to West across northern Bavaria. The Main's steep banks and similarly shaped close-by hills make up the characteristic wine growing hills ("Weinberge") of the region.

Of Germany's 13 wine growing regions, Franken has the least reliable production due to its notoriously harsh winters and the resulting early frosts and damage to the vines. In the spring of 1985, the region suffered a desastrous breakage due to an unusually mild February that teased the vines into early production followed immediately by harsh frost that killed most of its plants. It took Franken wine several years to recover from the damage and return to its current size of about 6000 hektar under vines.

When weather allows the wine to grow, it tends to reward the effort with a lively white wine that appears "fresh" due to its relatively low alcohol content and high acidity. However, some of the vineyards close to the Main river tend to produce very well balanced and more subdued white wines.

The center of wine production in Franken is the town of Würzburg, an old seat of the catholic bishop in the area that has a long tradition of wine making. It is explicitly mentioned in Johann Wolfgang Goethe's letters to his wife where he is asking for her to send him wine from Würzburg since no other can please him anymore.

The majority of Franken wine is sold through the local wine cooperative ("Gebietswinzergenossenschaft"). It was able to maintain comparably high prices over the years based on the low yield and the decent reputation of wine from Franken that has not been engulfed in any of the wine scandals in the 1980s. The traditional bottle for Franken wine is a bulky bottle called "Bocksbeutel" similar to the Portugese Matteus Rose. However, wine of equal quality can be found cheaper in large 1 liter bottles.

The most frequently grown grape varieties in Franken are:

Müller-Thurgau 
Sylvaner 
Kerner 
Bacchus 
Riesling