Germany is now the world's third-largest grower of Pinot Noir, and Baden — its warmest region, facing Alsace across the Rhine — is the heartland. Spätburgunder, as the Germans call it, ripens on the volcanic loess of the Kaiserstuhl into silky, structured, genuinely serious reds of red cherry and forest floor.
Once thin and pale, German Pinot has been transformed, and Baden's best growers now make wines that stand comparison with village-level Burgundy. Burgundian in grape and ambition alike, it is the sunny southern face of German red wine.