Country of origin: Germany
Year of entry into the German Federal Office's Varieties Register: 1972
Breeder/License holder: Landesanstalt für Rebenzüchtung, Alzey, Rheinhessan
     Bred by Georg Scheu in 1929. The original name of the variety was Faber but a few
     years ago it was officially renamed Faberrebe; Rebe being the German word for vine.
Number of clones:
Area planted in Germany in 1986: 2255 hectares
     (The 11th most widely planted variety, but the rate of expansion is low)
Area planted in England (as at August 2004):   hectares

Wine Character - colour: yellow-green 
                      - bouquet: finely aromatic
                      - palate: fruity
A 'traditional' style wine, elegant, fruity, fresh, with racy tartaric acidity, enough extract and a quite fine light muscat bouquet.

Time of bud-burst: early-middle

Strength of growth: medium, upright
Growth of side-shoots: medium

Flowering time: late (others say early)
Flowering strength: high

Leaf: - size: medium                        - shape: five-lobed 
        - colour: 
        - surface undulation: slight       - petiolar sinus: V-form open

Grape bunch: - size: medium-large     - density: medium-tight
Berries:        - size: medium             - shape: oval to round
                   - skin colour: green-yellow

Time of veraison: early-middle (a week before Müller-Thurgau)
Time of harvest: a week after M-Th (since it has higher acidity and assimilates for longer)

Grape yield: high (with 2 to 4 bunches per shoot)
Must-weight: medium-high (8 - 10 °Oe above Müller-Thurgau)
Must-acidity: medium-high (2 - 3 % above Müller-Thurgau)

Wood ripening: medium
Winter hardiness: medium
Wood colour: yellow-brown

Chlorosis resistance: very high
Susceptibility to - Oidium: high                 - Peronospora: 
                       - Botrytis: medium-high     - Roter Brenner: 
                       - Phomopsis                     - Stem-atrophy: a reputed weakness, occurring only a week or so before the bunches are fully ripe; the bunches fall to the ground but are ripe enough to be picked up and processed. This is not a serious problem, seeming rarely to occur in the UK, maybe due to soil conditions. 
Fungal diseases are easily controlled by a careful spray programme.

Preferred soil: very adaptable to a wide range of soil types.
Suitable rootstocks: 125AA on soils of average growing strength, also 26G.
     SO4, Binova on strong-growing soils.

Normal stem height: 0.6 to 0.7m
Normal row spacing: 1.8 to 2.0m
Vine spacing in the row: 1.0 to 1.2m
     Less suitable for wide-planted training systems, unless on 125AA rootstock.

Winter Pruning: 6 to 8 eyes/buds per sq. metre of land occupied by the plant.

Advantages: High yield (above Bacchus), high must-weight, racy wine, upright growth.

Disadvantages: Reputed weakness for stem-atrophy.

Note: Faberrebe came out top overall in an extensive comparative trial of 22 'new' varieties and 3 traditional varieties, over the harvests 1975 to 1980 in the winegrowing area which has the poorest climate of all the European winegrowing areas.
It has not yet achieved the popularity in the UK which it merits.

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