Why do you think German wines are not as fashionable in the market place as Italian, French and California wines? 

Most of us have learned to love those Franco-Italian style dry table wines.  German Rieslings have an aroma and flavor profile that can be hard to get used to. 

Another reason for slower German sales is when Liebfraumilch became the western world's cheap white wine of choice in the 1980's, selling for almost nothing and destroying the German fine wine industry.

How about not being able to understand the wine label?  If you can't read it, why buy it?  Hopefully, the following may help with that:

SELBACH-OSTER is the winery

2007 is the vintage

WEHLENER is the village of WEHLEN.  (The "er" shows that it is an adjective.)

SONNENUHR is the vineyard

RIESLING is the grape variety

SPATLESE is the term for a wine from fully ripe grapes. Although the wines are often sweet, the term refers to the level of ripeness when harvested, not the amount of sugar in the finished wine.

MOSEL  is the modern shortened version of MOSEL-SAAR-RUWER wine region.

Due to new merchandising and new "easier to understand" labels we find German wine sales on an uphill trend.  Buck the old trend and be ahead of the fashion.  German wines are coming back!

--Marie Griffin, Wine Supervisor West/Northwest Florida