Since 1798, courageous men, and with Marie Häusser and Henriette Christmann also women, managed the estate. After 225 years, three generations now work together with Fritz, Steffen and Sophie. Fritz and Gisela took over the winery from Arnold Christmann in 1964 and, with hard work, put it back on a firm footing after the wars and the inflationary period. In the end, they led the estate back to one of the best of the region and were finally accepted into the VDP in 1994. Since 2017, the next generation is already firmly established with Sophie.
Today we look back to the time when our winery emerged. Many generations have cultivated our vineyards, which are among the most valuable sites in Germany, to the best of their knowledge. Our goal is to preserve and sustainably manage these in the future. Our history shapes our actions and our self-image. We have clear values that determine how we deal with our heritage and help us make incisive and forward-looking decisions. We do not think in terms of quarterly figures or annual financial statements, but over decades. Sustainable and resource-conserving work is the logical consequence of our endeavor to pass the estate on to future generations in the best possible condition.
Each generation has its challenges and ideas, but all share the same understanding of the winemaking profession: work and everyday life are determined by nature. The focus is always on the vineyard and the wine. Together with our team, we strive for perfection.
The idea of redesigning our assortment has occupied us for a long time. Intensively we thought about how to take this step and whether we were too bold, too progressive or too fast. But the desire to focus the winery on the best was too strong. This is how the conversion took place last year. All vineyards that are not VDP.First and Great Vineyards have been given away. In addition to our single-vineyard wines, there is now only one wine per variety, “Aus den Lagen”. These wines, come 100% from our classified vineyards, are hand-picked, spontaneously fermented and carefully blended. This allows us to devote all our attention to our best vineyards and to implement our focus on wines of origin even more consistently.
After one year, we now know that the decision was absolutely right for us. Now there is not a single wine in our range that is not backed by large vineyards, careful work and a lot of thoughts. We would like to thank you for the great encouragement and your willingness to follow this consistent path with us. This year we are taking the next step: from now on, all Rieslings will be delivered in the fall. Thus, in our cellar we no longer make a distinction between “Aus den Lagen”, Erster Lage and Großer Lage. All wines are separated from the yeast at the same time, blended and finally bottled. This gives the wines even more time and us the chance to really get to know the wines in detail before they are bottled in July and finally enter your cellars in September.
02 – 27 September 2022
A new wine year – new challenges. In 2021, there was too much rain, and then the opposite in 2022. Fortunately, however, here locally, almost 90 litres of rain fell within 5 days at the end of June. The rain was slow and steady, allowing our humus-rich soils to retain plenty of water. 19 years of biodynamics with gentle ground work are very valuable in dry years. Our vines have deep roots and therefore are very resistant.
At the beginning of September, the harvest started. Wonderful, ripe Pinot Noirs could be harvested. The following weeks were changeable. In addition to beautiful, sunny days, showers forced us to pause again and again. Maturity progressed only slowly. Thanks to the efforts of our large team, we were able to use the sunny days to quickly harvest ripe, healthy grapes. Today we are very satisfied with what we have harvested. In the cellar lies a vintage full of pressure and tension, with well integrated acidity and spice. Thus, 2022 joins its wonderful predecessors such as 2020, 2017 and 2015.
