Vintner Stories

Tourism

Winegrowers tell their stories

Thousands of winegrowers in Germany's 13 wine regions work dusk to dawn fulfilling their own personal vision of what wine can and should be. Their talent and passion throughout the year are part of what makes this profession and this product so special. We invited wine producers to tell us some of their stories. They responded with tales of their daily challenges, dreams, learnings and memorable experiences from the world of wine. Enjoy these stories in order or simply meander through the various winegrowing regions and the captivating words of the people who work them.


Pfalz

From a Cellar Baptism to a Cellar Master

So how do you recover from a terribly embarrassing mistake in the middle of a terribly important test? How about when you're a winegrower-in-training? And it's your practical examination on cellar technique? No problem. You simply go on to take the reins in your estate's cellar.

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Mosel

Mosel - Sentenced to Life... in Wine

My husband is one of the few real scoundrels in the winegrowing business. He and four other young vintners from the Mosel teamed up to form the renowned/notorious Riesling Kartell.

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Sachsen

Shelter from the Storm

As a winegrower, you are perpetually at the mercy of nature's whims. Weather-related harvest losses are no rare occurrence. But the Elbe flooding of 2002 caught us absolutely unawares.

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Rheinhessen

A Barrel Full of New Experiences

My motto is to be open to new things, to try everything at least once and to never stop learning. When it was time for me to look for a practical internship as part of my studies, I didn't want to work at another winegrowing estate like everyone else. I wanted to see something completely different.

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Mosel

What's in a Name

Tradition can bind us — but sometimes it can be confusing as well. Our estate has borne the Reuscher-Haart name for centuries, but my grandmother Maria ended up being the last proper "Reuscher" to work here.

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Franken

Franken - From a Pub Dream to a Winegrowing Estate

Hard liquor has famously powered many a crazy idea among university house mates. Wine is also a well-known 'creative juice' — even if few of the ideas ever come to fruition.

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Mosel

In vino historia

We are the only estate to own a vineyard with its own Roman funerary temple — the only one of its kind preserved in its original form on the Mosel.

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Franken

From "Stand Back" to "Standard"

"It's good to dream," I used to tell myself back at the beginning of my career. My goal was to get listed in the highly prestigious Gault&Millau Wine Guide.

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Pfalz

100% Passion for Wine

"Life is too short to drink mediocre wine!" That's the motto at Vier Jahreszeiten Winzer eG, the club for which I've served as chairman for over 12 years now.

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Mosel

Three Generations and a Black Cat

Our estate may well be the poster child for a classic family-run operation. Three generations live together under one roof, working together to build the perfect wine. With our tomcat Jacky, of course, our own personal "Zeller schwarze Katz".

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Mittelrhein

Good Wine Comes from the Heart

They say that hands-on experience is better than book learning, and so back at the start of my studies in the international wine business I tried to put all that theory into practice.

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Sachsen

Our Wine Grows Steep

Sometimes the best way to see how much love and passion goes into something is to realize just how difficult the object of that affection can be. At our estate, for example, we work with very old steep vineyards bounded by dry stone walls, a setup that demands a great deal of manual care and physical exertion.

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Franken

One for All. All for One.

Most estates in Germany are still family run — and many local winegrowing communities themselves behave like a large family. Such as in our wine village, where structures established over centuries are still in place.

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Saale-Unstrut

The Secret of the Monks

My husband and I are academics and not particularly inclined to believe in the supernatural. But even we cannot quite deny the magical effect of our vineyards, which were once owned by a cloister of Cistercian monks.

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Saale-Unstrut

From Mining to Wining

When people hear the word mining, they tend to think about dust, heavy machines and dirty covered surfaces — not about tender vines. Unless you're my father. Back in 1997 he saw something no one else in Europe did.

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Rheingau

A Thousand and One Tastes

German Riesling and Turkish cuisine may sound like an odd combination — until you try it! Then you discover just how well the aromas deepen and complement each other.

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Mosel

Blown Away in New York

They say New York is the city where anything can happen. I was not sure how true that really is, when I first traveled there in February 2013. It was my first time in the USA and I was on my way to the Riesling celebration

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Pfalz

Persevere and Dreams Come True

What would you do if you had created the perfect sparkling wine - and then the good old German bureaucracy has put a spanner in the works?

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Rheingau

A Real Monastic Winery

I am a trained vintner - and a nun. Our monastery is the only winery in Germany that is run by religious members and in which they also actively participate.

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Pfalz

Winelovers without Borders

Our winery wasn’t meant to be in Forst where it is today. According to legend, our family wanted to emigrate from Pfeffingen to America.

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Rheingau

We drink Swiss Francs!

As owner of one of the best cheese factories in Switzerland, for many years I dedicated my life to the milk of the Appenzeller cows. But at some point, a new challenge had to be found. And since nothing goes better with cheese than a good wine, I decided to turn to viticulture for my livelihood.

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Rheinhessen

ה רעשה הוהיל םיקידצ ואבי וב

"This is the gateway to the Eternal, the righteous will enter there."
Anyone who stands in front of the gate of our wine press and reads these lines, may suspect that this is a very special place. Initially - if you follow the writing - hardly anything is unusual except for the Hebrew tablet.

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Contact Person:

Eberhard Abele
Head of Advertising and Market Research Section
Phone: ++49 6135 / 9323 - 153
EA(at)deutscheweine.de

Tell us your story!

If you have a wine story to tell us, fill out the questionnaire here. The entry you submit will, if selected by us, be edited editorially and then voted with you again. More informationen about registration (in German)