According to the Rhineland-Palatinate Minister of Viticulture, the eight federal states with wine production have agreed on targeted improvements in the midst of the crisis in this sector. According to the head of the department, Daniela Schmitt (FDP), they agreed on a joint paper at a winegrowing summit in Rheingau, Hesse. It is about stable framework conditions, less bureaucracy, stronger origin and quality profiling and more visibility for German wines at home and abroad.
Rising costs, less consumption, overproduction and international competition are putting winegrowing under pressure. Hesse's Minister of Viticulture Ingmar Jung (CDU) had invited representatives from Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia as well as from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to the first meeting of its kind at Eberbach Monastery near Eltville.
Minister Schmitt emphasized: "German wine is one of the best in the world." Its current market share of only 42 percent in the Federal Republic does not do justice to this. The many other bottles of wine on the German market are imports.
