Flurbereinigung, refers to wholesale restructuring to which most of Germany’s vineyards have been subjected since the 1950s, involving improved accessibility, grading, consolidation of growers’ highly fragmented holdings, and of course replanting. Without this restructuring, many vineyards would long since have been abandoned as not economically viable to till. But the process—which must be agreed to by a majority of landholders who share its costs with the state—is often contentious. Owners of vineyards marginally located or extremely difficult to access are offered the opportunity of opting out, and some entire vineyards have been deemed too onerously steep and rocky to be amenable to restructuring. It is largely as a result of these two situations that ancient terraces and vines, some ungrafted, remain in certain sites, especially along the saar and mosel.
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