Rotberger is a

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

grape variety This list of grape varieties includes cultivated grapes, whether used for wine, or eating as a table grape, fresh or dried (raisin, currant, sultana). For a complete list of all grape species including those unimportant to agriculture, see Viti ...

. Its parentage is not known with certainty but it is thought to be from a cross of

Trollinger Trollinger, Schiava, or Vernatsch, is a red German/Italian wine grape variety that was likely first originally cultivated in the wine regions of South Tyrol and Trentino, but today is almost exclusively cultivated on steep, sunny locations in t ...

and

Riesling Riesling (, ; ) is a white grape variety that originated in the Rhine region. Riesling is an aromatic grape variety displaying flowery, almost perfumed, aromas as well as high acidity. It is used to make dry, semi-sweet, sweet, and sparkling wh ...

grapes. Dr. Heinrich Birk (1898-1973) produced the cross at the

Geisenheim Grape Breeding Institute The Geisenheim Grape Breeding Institute was founded in 1872 and is located in the town of Geisenheim, in Germany's Rheingau region. In 1876 Swiss-born professor Hermann Müller joined the institute, where he developed his namesake grape variety M ...

in 1928. It is used to produce

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

y, early maturing light red wines in cool-climate areas. It is often best drunk when young and can be used to produce a rosé or

sparkling wine Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it, making it fizzy. While the phrase commonly refers to champagne, European Union countries legally reserve that term for products exclusively produced in the Champagne regi ...

. It has no relationship with the Rotburger variety bearing a nearly similar name which is also known as

Zweigelt The Zweigelt, also known as Rotburger, is a new Austrian grape created in 1922 by Friedrich Zweigelt (1888–1964), who later became Director of the Federal Institute and Experimental Station of Viticulture, Fruit Production and Horticulture ( ...

. Production of rotberger is quite small and primarily limited to Austria, Canada, Germany, and Liechtenstein.

References

Red wine grape varieties Rheingau {{Wine-grape-stub