Hallo!

In the weeks running up to Flight Club XI, our blind tasting of dry Rieslings from around the world, I've been going deep on the grape: the history, the regions, the labels.

Somewhere in that rabbit hole, I was reminded of the term hock and thought you might be interested in the etymology.

Turns out, it's an excellent story.

Hochheim am Main is a town that sits in the Rheingau, where the Main river flows into the Rhine. This stretch of riverbank in Germany is where some of the most prestigious Riesling in the world has been produced for centuries.

Hochheim has traditionally been the commercial center of the Rhine wine trade, and the wines it produced (predominantly Riesling) had been making their way to Britain since at least the 10th century.

The British, as is their wont, struggled with the name.

So, "Hochheimer" became "hockamer," then "hockamore," then, via a pitstop as "hogmar," the Brits—who have never seen an abbreviation they didn’t love—truncated the town's name until all that remained was a short grunt of a word: “hock.”

Its reference in Thomas D'Urfey's 1676 Madam Fickle is among the earliest in print, and perhaps the most entertaining.

Madam Fickle was a Restoration comedy premiered at the Dorset Garden Theatre, with Charles II and the Duke of Ormonde in attendance.

In it, a supposed widow is besieged by three suitors anxious to marry her. The plot builds around her witty tricks to tease and lead them on while keeping each ignorant of the others' existence.

But wait! Her husband, Dorrel, is in fact not dead! He had only abandoned his wife on their wedding night and disappeared into exile, and the world just assumed he was dead. Dummies!

Why did he do that? So he could spy on his wife by taking up service (in disguise, obviously) in her household.

Ultimately, he is satisfied with her fidelity to his fake-dead self, reveals his crazy scheme to her, and they both live “happily ever after.”

Charming.

ANYWAY, the actual line referring to hock is not a celebration of it at all. A character named Tilbury is offered "Old Hock" and rejects it:

So, one of the first written records of the word "hock" is a grumpy old man refusing it and demanding a sweet fortified wine from the Canary Islands instead, complaining that German wines are a corruption of proper drinking.

(Also: ‘Sbodikins is not a character, it’s an archaic swear: a mangling of "God's bodikins" referring to the holy nails of the crucifixion.)

Not a bad origin story for a wine that would later have Queen Victoria naming vineyards after herself.

At this point, “hock” referred specifically to white wine from the middle Rhine, and it was anything but cheap. Rhine wines commanded prices on par with the best of Bordeaux and Burgundy.

Prestigious enough, in fact, that other German regions started piggybacking on the name. By the 18th century, "hock" had stretched to cover any German white wine sold in Britain, regardless of origin or quality.

In 1714, Queen Anne died without an heir and Britain cast about for a Protestant successor.

What it got was George Louis, Elector of Hanover, a German who spoke little English, liked his new country even less, and returned to Hanover whenever he could.

He became George I, and with him began nearly 200 years of German royal rule. Six monarchs in total, culminating in Queen Victoria herself, the last of the Hanoverians, though by then the family had been supplemented by Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who was also, emphatically, German.

Whether the Hanoverian succession formally accelerated Britain's enthusiasm for Rhine wine is hard to pin down precisely. But it is at minimum a coincidence worth noting: Britain imported its royal family from Germany and, increasingly, its wine.

The story reaches its peak in 1845, when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Hochheim during harvest.

They were taken to what was described as the best vineyard in the area, tasted the wines, and the Queen later agreed to lend her name to the five-acre site, cultivated at the time by Georg Michael Papstmann (and exclusively today by Weingut Joachim Flick).

It became the Königin-Victoriaberg—“Queen Victoria hill”—and on her birthday in 1854, a monument was unveiled in her honor right in the middle of the vines.

The neo-Gothic crest of the Queen of England has appeared on every bottle from that vineyard ever since. Victoria was apparently fond enough of the wine to inspire a saying: "Good hock keeps off the doc." She did live to 81. So.

Queen Elizabeth II later visited the same site, and Weingut Joachim Flick remains an official purveyor to Buckingham Palace today, sending wines from Königin-Victoriaberg to the Royal Family for royal banquets, weddings, and official functions.

By the 19th century, "hock" meant any German white wine.

Then, as German wine's reputation declined in the 20th century through a combination of industrial production, confusing labeling, and an unfortunate association with very sweet, very cheap imports, the word slid with it.

Today, "hock" in Britain means something you'd find on the bottom shelf at a gas station. The tall brown bottle, once synonymous with wines that rivalled Burgundy, became the giveaway of something you probably shouldn't open.

A shame, because Rheingau Riesling is excellent. It just stopped being called what it was.

For Flight Club this month, we're blind tasting dry Rieslings from around the world—including one from the Rheingau itself, where the whole saga began.

More soon. See some of you on the 13th!

🥂 Deb

Flûte Alors! (18 June): winemaker dinner with Champagne Guiborat. It’s not a Third Place event, but for those who don’t know, I love grower Champagnes and it’s no big secret that I’m a massive fan of FA! and what they’re doing to share some of the best growers here in Luxembourg. I’m happy to support them whenever I can. If you’re interested, reply to this email and I can share more details.

Holidays: I’ll be taking my first break of the year at the end of June and not a moment too soon, either. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted on the results of Flight Club and the Champagne Guiborat dinner.

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