It is a great fortune to cultivate vines in one of the few landscapes in the world that gives us such fine, dry Riesling and Pinot wines. Our goal is not to short-sightedly follow every trend and every new wine style, but to produce wines that are part of a long tradition of top wines and that tell of their origin. In doing so, we want to capture special taste experiences in bottles that only the Palatinate, the Mittelhaardt and our vineyards around Gimmeldingen and Königsbach can produce.
Steffen Christmann
In the cellar, less is more to create authentic wines. Our goal is not to short-sightedly follow every new wine style, but to produce wines that are part of a long tradition of top wines. Riesling is the DNA of the Mittelhaardt and our family. No other grape variety is so closely linked to the fate of the Palatinate. Gentle hand harvesting, slow pressing, spontaneous fermentation, aging in wooden barrels, a lot of manual work and time are the basics for our wines. For a few years now, we have not been so careful about pre-clearance. Thanks to more lees, our fermentations become warmer and the Rieslings more purist and spicy.
Sophie Christmann
In addition to Riesling, Pinot Noir has regained new importance in our estate. With Sophie, the 8th generation took up their work in 2018. Fascinated by the great Pinot Noirs of Burgundy, her passion is to get to the top here. Thanks to cold maceration, between 20-30% whole clusters in fermentation, little pigeage and early pressing, fine and long Pinot Noirs with charming cherry fruit emerge. The basis is formed by old Pinot Noir vines, but also younger vine selections that we have obtained directly from Burgundy in recent years. But all this would not be possible if the vines were not in vineyards whose calcareous marl is so similar to that in Burgundy. Combined with Sophie’s knowledge of wine production which she acquired in France and Baden, we achieve a new dimension in our estate.
