Liebfraumilch

Wine lovers of a certain age may remember the riesling-based “Leapfrogmilch,” a play on the German liebfraumilch.

Wine lovers of a certain age will remember Blue Nun Liebfraumilch, the popular white wine that took America by storm in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Liebfraumilch, an off-dry nondescript white blend, disappeared in the late ’90s, but Blue Nun didn’t.

Indeed, it was a nondescript, off-dry white wine, much like the Liebfraumilch of old, but with bubbles and glitter.

Back in 1988, New Zealand was “the most exciting new wine region in the world,” according to Stevenson, as growers stopped producing knockoffs of German Liebfraumilch and began concentrating on sauvignon blanc that “competes on equal terms with the very best that Sancerre and Pouilly Fumé have to offer.”