Earlier this year, news rocked the usually placid German wine scene that 15 or so of the country’s top producers had threatened not to submit any of their wines to any tastings for the 2010 edition of the nation’s best-selling Gault Millau wine guide. On the face of it, leading lights such as Helmut Dönnhoff, Egon Müller and the Knipser brothers seemed to take umbrage at a request to make a contribution of just short of €200 to the coffers of the publishers.
Although this turned out to be an invitation for a voluntary donation, for which participants would in...