Mueller Thurgau Part 1

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Today we are answering a question from the email. A listener writes “we had a wine from Oregon called Mueller Thurgau and we are wondering what it is”.

Well Mueller-Thurgau may be new to you, but it has been around since the nineteenth century, and they have been making wine from it with good results since the early days of the Oregon wine industry. Mueller-Thurgau is a white grape variety created by a scientist, Dr. Hermann Mueller, from the Swiss canton of Thurgau, and was obviously named for him. It was for years thought to have been the hybrid of two types of Riesling , and then for many years it was said to be the hybrid of Riesling and Sylvaner. In fact in New Zealand the wine is often named Riesling-Sylvaner. But the advent of DNA research into plant genetics has called that crossbreed into uncertainty. There is still some question as to what the exact grape was in the crossbreed with Riesling. Well whatever it is there are about 104,000 acres in cultivation worldwide, including Germany, Austria, Northern Italy, England, Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand and as we heard Oregon. It is actually one of the primary white grapes of Germany and is associated with their lesser quality and inexpensive wines. Tomorrow we will continue our discussion about Mueller-Thurgau. In the meantime, send your wine questions to Linda at vine to wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today’s Vine to Wine.