By Magnus von Kageneck, cellar master · Updated: August 2026
There is exactly one drink in the wine year that you cannot buy without it getting worse on the way: Federweisser. What you find in the supermarket has been slowed down, chilled and driven around — and that is why it rarely tastes the way it should. And yet Federweisser is the simplest product in the whole of winemaking: it is simply a wine you drink halfway through its fermentation. When my father first showed it to me, I was twelve, and I was only allowed to smell the glass. That smell — yeast, pear, a little bread — is still, to this day, the smell of autumn for me.
What Federweisser actually is
Grape juice that has started to ferment and is still hard at work: part of the sugar has already become alcohol (usually 4–6 % vol), the carbon dioxide from the fermentation is still in the glass, and the yeast floats in it, milky and cloudy. Hence the name, which means “feather white”: the yeast hangs in the light like little feathers.
How to set it up
- Get the juice or press it. White grape juice is the classic, but naturally cloudy apple juice works just as well (in which case the result is called “Rauscher” in Germany). Important: 100 % not-from-concentrate juice without preservatives — sorbic acid chokes the yeast before it even gets going.
- Add the yeast. A cultured wine yeast such as Steinberg yeast ferments cleanly and briskly; one sachet is enough for up to 50 litres, and for the typical 5 litres you simply use part of it. Add a knife-tip of yeast nutrient salt as well, so the yeast doesn't go hungry.
- Let it ferment — with air! Close the vessel only with an airlock or a loosely placed lid, and never screw it on tight: fermentation constantly produces carbon dioxide, and a sealed bottle turns into a pressure bottle. At 18–22 °C it gets going after half a day to a full day.
- Catch the right moment. From day 2, taste it every day. At first it is sweet and fizzy (“Bitzler”, as it is called in Germany), then balanced, then increasingly dry and tart. Most people like it between day 3 and day 5. If you want to know exactly, measure with the Oechsle hydrometer: at about half the starting value, you are halfway there.
- Chill it and drink it soon. The fridge slows the yeast down but doesn't stop it. Federweisser is not a wine for keeping — it's a date.
Three mistakes I have made myself, every one of them
Transported tightly closed: a PET bottle of Federweisser on the back seat is a bet against physics. Just rest the cap on top or leave it a third of a turn open.
Fermented too warm: above 25 °C the fermentation races away and tastes broad and yeasty. 18–20 °C is ideal.
Waited too long: Federweisser turns into — well — wine. That is no disaster, just a different project: at that point it belongs under the airlock and is left in peace.
If your first glass of your own has given you a taste for more: the step from Federweisser to finished wine is shorter than you think — it is the same batch, just with patience. How to carry on is explained in our emergency plan for a stuck fermentation and in the article on clarifying.
Related in the shop: Cider & New Wine and Yeast Nutrients & Fermentation Aids