At the competitions of the GOLDEN GRAPE AWARDS for Silvaner, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Pinot varieties, and Blaufränkisch, we tasted over 4,400 wines from 994 wineries. Here are the winners!
More than 500 guests sit at festively laid tables in the atmospherically lit event hall at the Karlsruhe Trade Fair Centre. On stage, winemakers, cellar masters and sales managers beam into the audience with applause and cheers. On the evening of the first day of the Eurovino trade fair, the wein.plus tasting team endowed the winners of the GOLDEN GRAPE AWARDS with their trophies.
The big competition of wein.plus once again included five grape varieties: Silvaner, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Pinot varieties, and Blaufränkisch. Over a period of 16 months, the tasting team headed by Marcus Hofschuster assessed a total of 4,444 wines from 994 producers from Germany, Austria, and South Tyrol. This meant that the number of wines was around ten per cent higher than in 2024. The tasters assessed the wines blind in the neutral tasting room in Erlangen using the 100-point system.
A total of 589 prizewinners and 1,851 award-winning wines in various categories emerged from all five competitions. The medals ranged from bronze to silver, gold, and grand gold. This highest honour was awarded from 92 points—a result achieved by only 274 wines in total. Kim Schreiber and Marcus Hofschuster judged the most wines in the Riesling competition, which also saw by far the most top scores.
Marcus Hofschuster and Kim Schreiber are the judges of the GOLDEN GRAPE AWARDS
wein.plus / Thomas VatheuerThe three winners of each competition, who were honoured in Karlsruhe, each won the most "Grand Gold" medals. In order to determine the ranking of the winners, the jury also took into account the number of other awards and the points scored by the wines in the event of an equal number of medals. The tasting team presented each of the top three winners with a glass sculpture as an award. The winners then received congratulations from Britta Wirtz, Managing Director of the Karlsruhe trade fair centre, and Gabriele Luczak-Schwarz, Mayor of Karlsruhe.
"The GOLDEN GRAPE AWARDS are not like other wine competitions," explains Marcus Hofschuster. "We don't have a large jury tasting lots of wines in a very short space of time. Instead, two experienced tasting professionals taste wines throughout the year with much more time for each individual wine. We use the results of these blind tastings to determine the winners of the awards."
winners
First place went to Weingut Horst Sauer (Franconia) with four Grand Gold medals, second place to Weingut Rudolf May (Franconia) with one Grand Gold medal and third place to Weingut Hans Wirsching (Franconia), also with one Grand Gold medal. With eleven medals each, Weingut Rainer Sauer (Franconia) and the Fürstlich Castell'sche Domäne (Franken) received the most awards, followed by Weingut Horst Sauer, which won nine medals.
To the results of the Silvaner competition
First place went to Weingut Gross (Styria) with two Grand Golds, second place to Weingut Neumeister (Styria), also with two Grand Golds, and third place to Weingut Drautz-Able (Württemberg) with one Grand Gold. The Drautz-Able winery also received the most awards with six medals.
To the results of the Sauvignon Blanc competition
The Schäfer-Fröhlich winery (Nahe) took first place with twelve Grand Gold awards, the Robert Weil winery (Rheingau) second place with nine Grand Gold awards and the Max Ferd. Richter winery (Mosel) third place with seven Grand Gold awards. Weingut Schäfer-Fröhlich won 27 awards, Weingut Max Ferd. Richter 26 awards and Weingut Nik Weis (Mosel) 24 awards. The Leitz winery (Rheingau) won 21 medals.
To the results of the Riesling competition
Winery Friedrich Becker (Pfalz) took first place with six Grand Gold medals, winery Bertram-Baltes (Ahr) took second place with three Grand Gold medals and winery Franz Keller (Baden) took third place, also with three Grand Gold medals. With a total of 15 medals, Weingut Friedrich Becker also won the most awards, followed by Weingut Schlumberger-Bernhart (Baden) with 14 medals. The Bischöfliches Weingut (Rheingau) and Weingut Neus (Rheinhessen) each received twelve medals, while Weingut Brenneisen (Baden) won eleven awards.
To the results of the Pinot varieties competition
First place went to the Anita and Hans Nittnaus winery (Burgenland) with two Grand Golds, second place to the Jalits winery (Burgenland), also with two Grand Golds, and third place to the Aldinger winery (Württemberg) with one Grand Gold. The Anita and Hans Nittnaus winery also won the most awards with seven medals.
To the results of the Blaufränkisch competition