One of the most beautiful spots on earth is due to a whim of nature – the Rheingau. Where the Rhine changes its direction for a few kilometres to the west the softly rising vineyards extend on the right river bank protected by the thickly forested south-facing slopes of the Rheingau hills. This is the home of the world-famous Riesling wines. More than 82 per cent of the total vineyard area amounting to 3,200 hectares are planted with the Queen of Vines – the Riesling grape - and excellent Spätburgunder grows on 13 per cent of the vineyard area.

It is incontestable that the soil on which the vines grow influences the wine’s character. It is also known that the climatic conditions do not provide the prerequisites for growing optimal grapes everywhere and in each year. That’s why for a wine connoisseur it appears to be simple and plausible to scope particularly suitable areas for producing vine-specific top products, the so-called “First Growth” (“Erstes Gewächs”).

The efforts of the Rheingau wine growers to be allowed to designate excellent wines, which have grown on  clearly defined areas particularly worthy of wine growing, also with respect to designation law, have been embraced by the Government of Hesse and supported by a broad majority. The desire to have the label “First Growth" anchored in federal law, turned out to be difficult and tedious. In order to enable a quick legal realisation the decision was made in favour of introducing the quality mark "First Growth" into the winegrowing area of the Rheingau. But this venture was not that easy.

First a tedious process of opinion-forming took place in the region, which was necessary due to the changes by the Wine Law of 1971 with respect to site designation. Already at the beginning of the 90’s the association of the Charter wine-growing estates in the Rheingau began scoping what it considered to be the best classified sites or parts thereof and to produce special wines by fulfilling the guidelines for quality improvement. In other wine-growing regions a comparable intention was also pursued mostly by VDP wine estates (“VDP = Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter e.V.” i.e. Association of German Prädikat / Predicate Wine Estates). The basics of classification met vehement criticism. Old maps were used which had frequently been used for the purpose of property valuation by the financial administration in the past.

It was also striking that the classified areas of the region were mostly cultivated by the very estates which had made the decision for classification. Thus, they were criticised for subjectiveness.