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Protected geographical indication (PGI) · Cider

Hessischer Apfelwein

The protected geographical indication for Hessian apple wine, the still, high-acid German cider tradition centred on Frankfurt and its surrounding orchards.

This record was taken as at 2026-08-23 and describes an instrument administered in Germany.

Kind
Protected geographical indication (PGI)
Product
Cider
Country
Germany
Regions covered
Hessen, Frankfurt
Register
EU register of geographical indications, file PGI-DE-0620, verified against the register on 2026-08-25. The German product specification is held by the DPMA under file 305 99 009.8 and was read there.
Record taken as at
2026-08-23
Registered on
2007-07-16
What this page is, and what it is not

CiderHQ records the structure of a specification: that it defines an area, that it restricts the fruit, that it sets a minimum strength or a sweetness band. Where a figure was not verified against the register itself, this page says a threshold exists and stops there rather than reproducing a number it cannot trace. Knowing that a limit is written down, and where it is written down, is worth more than a plausible figure.

Designation rules change. Specifications are amended, and the amendments do not announce themselves. Anyone relying on this commercially — labelling a product, drafting a claim, buying under the name — must read the current specification on the register itself rather than any summary of it, including this one.

Read the register: European Commission · Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt · Bundespatentgericht, ECLI:DE:BPatG:2024:020924B30Wpat54.22.0

What the specification requires

Each requirement is recorded as a claim with its jurisdiction, its as-of date and the source it rests on. Requirements that could not carry all three are not shown.

The specification permits the juice of the service tree fruit to be added on its own, and states what it is for: it takes the haze out of the apple wine. It also states how rarely it is done — *weit über 95 % des in Hessen hergestellten Apfelweins ist rein aus Äpfeln*, well over 95 per cent of Hessian apple wine being purely from apples.

Primary authority Germany (EU geographical indication) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Bundespatentgericht, ECLI:DE:BPatG:2024:020924B30Wpat54.22.0

Speierling is the single most repeated fact about Hessian apple wine in English writing, usually as a tannin addition and usually as though it were normal. The specification says clarification, and says fewer than one bottle in twenty.

The specification is under a live application to change it. The application, lodged in 2015 and reformulated in 2021, would cut the apple share from 97 to 95 per cent and admit quince and pear in the gap, permit apple juice concentrate as a raw material, and permit sugar and acid correction. The German patent and trade mark office refused it in 2022; on 2 September 2024 the Federal Patent Court allowed the appeal in part and remitted nine of the sixteen changes for fresh examination. As at 2026-08-25 the specification in force is the registered one described above.

Primary authority Germany (EU geographical indication) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Bundespatentgericht, ECLI:DE:BPatG:2024:020924B30Wpat54.22.0

The applicant’s own argument is the striking part, and it is on the record: that the larger Hessian producers traditionell überwiegend Apfelsaftkonzentrat — traditionally use predominantly apple juice concentrate — evidenced by statements from a former cellarmaster of one house and confirmations from two others. A protected name whose holder argues that its distinguishing requirements are not traditional is worth watching, and this site will restate the requirements when the office rules.

The specification defines the German federal state of Hesse as the geographical area and ties the protected name to production there through the stages the specification names.

Primary authority Germany (EU geographical indication) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · European Commission

The specification reserves the name for apple wine — apple juice fermented to dryness — rather than for a sweetened or flavoured apple drink, and states the production conditions the product must meet.

Primary authority Germany (EU geographical indication) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · European Commission

The specification requires a fruit content of 100 per cent, an acidity of at least 6 grams per litre, an acquired alcoholic strength of at least 5 per cent by volume, a sugar-free extract of at least 18 grams per litre, non-volatile acids of at least 4 grams per litre and volatile acids of no more than 0.8 grams per litre.

Primary authority Germany (EU geographical indication) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt, European Commission

The 100 per cent fruit content and the acid floor together are what separate Apfelwein from the sweetened apple drinks sold across the rest of the German market.

The addition of water or of sugar in the production of Hessischer Apfelwein is not permitted.

Primary authority Germany (EU geographical indication) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt

Sulphurous acid as an antioxidant is limited to 200 milligrams per litre. Acidity may be corrected only with lactic acid, to a maximum of 2 grams per litre. Caramel is permitted for colour correction.

Primary authority Germany (EU geographical indication) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt

A protected name that permits caramel colouring and lactic acidification is making a different kind of promise from one that forbids both, and the difference is worth reading before the two are compared.

Any liveliness in the product comes from carbon dioxide arising during fermentation.

Primary authority Germany (EU geographical indication) · recorded as at 2026-08-23 · Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt

About Hessischer Apfelwein

German apple wine is a different drink from English cider and from French cidre, and reading it against either produces the wrong expectations. Apfelwein is fermented dry, still or barely sparkling, higher in acid and lower in tannin than a West Country cider, and traditionally served from a ridged glass and a stoneware jug. In Hesse it is an everyday drink with a strong urban tradition around Frankfurt and Sachsenhausen, supported by orchards of standard trees in the surrounding country.

The protected name attaches to that regional product. Beyond the geography, the substance of the specification is that the drink must genuinely be fermented apple wine meeting stated analytical limits — which matters in a market where apple-based drinks are frequently sweetened, blended or carbonated to a different profile entirely.

This record is deliberately thin on detail, because the specification itself has not been read by this workstream and the register entry is the limit of what is being relied on. A reader who needs the analytical thresholds should take them from the specification on eAmbrosia rather than from here. As with every geographical indication, registration certifies origin and compliance with a specification; it says nothing about how good any particular Apfelwein is, and nothing at all about apple wine made in Baden-Württemberg, Austria or Switzerland.

Where it applies

The areas named by the specification, each described in its own terms.

What people ask next

Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.

Where to go next

Sources

What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.