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Gut Hermansberg

Gut Hermannsberg is a German wine estate in Niederhausen in the Nahe region that took its present form through the privatization of the Nahe State Domain (StaatlichenWeinbaudomäne Niederhausen-Schlossböckelheim) and is one of the leading wine producers of Germany. In April 1998 the German businessman Erich Maurer purchased the estate from the state of Rheinland-Pfalz and renamed it Gutsverwaltung Niederhausen-Schlossböckelheim, then in August 2009 the entrepreneur couple Jens Reidel and Dr. Christine Dinse bought it from Maurer. Since 2010 it has traded as Gut Hermannsberg. The estate has 30 hectares of vineyards divided between 7 sites that are all rated “VDP. Große Lage” by the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP), the unofficial German equivalent of the French Grand Cru classification. The estate is a founding member of the VDP.

History The founding of the Royal Prussian Wine Domain (Königlich-Preußische Weinbaudomäne) in Schlossböckelheim-Niederhausen in 1902 was a key part of the Prussian modernization strategy for the Nahe Wine Industry at the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries.

Winemaking on the Nahe in the 19th Century: from an Upturn to a Crisis

During this period German wines enjoyed a very high international reputation and commanded very high prices, but this was limited to the Rheingau, one or two other places along the Rhine Valley, and from the end of the 19th century also the Mosel, Saar and Ruwer. In contrast, the wines of the Nahe suffered from a poor reputation and the better wines were often, “blended… with simple wines from the Rheingau, Rhenish Hesse or Palatinate regions“.

Not until the construction of the railway along the Nahe Valley, a string of good vintages and the development of important wine merchants in Bad Kreuznach on the Nahe did the market position of the wines begin to improve from 1860, particularly through exports to the USA and England. This development was assisted by the way Silvaner and Riesling steadily advanced to become the main grape varieties in the region, also leading to an improvement in wine quality.

Then, at the end of the 19th century a combination of factors combined to push the Nahe wine industry into a deep crisis. The worst of these developments was the appearance of cheap highly manipulated wines to which sugar, water and various extracts had been added. These products pushed wines prices down, often below the level of production costs for unadulterated wines. From 1891 the reduction of tariffs on wines imported to Germany dramatically added to the downward pressure on wine prices. To make matters worse, the arrival of the powdery mildew and downy mildew fungi the plus the Phelloxera louse from North America during the second half of the 19th century (the latter first found on the Nahe in 1895) caused massive disruption of wine production throughout Europe.

The Path Out of the Crisis: Modernization Ordered from Above

The Prussian state, to which the majority of the modern Nahe region belonged, reacted to the crisis with a program of scientific and technical modernization. In 1900 the Bad Kreuznach Regional Wine and Fruit Growing School (Provinzial-Wein- und Obstbauschule) was founded in order to educate Nahe winegrowers and fruit farmers, also to research techniques that would provide “help for self-help” (Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe). At around the same time the decision was taken to establish a model wine estate in the region. Its goal was, “the economic and high-quality production of wine” and to be a role model in viticultural methods, cellar technology and business practices in order to encourage the further development of the region’s wine industry, along with the “promotion of the international reputation of German wines and the improvement of sales by means of qualitative and advertising efforts“.

Similar steps – the founding of wine and fruit growing schools with teaching and research functions plus model wine estates – were implemented in other German winegrowing regions at this time.

The Prussian program for the modernization of the wine industry was accompanied by state and private initiatives directed towards improving wine quality. The Prussian Wine Law of 1909 wine brought the first legal definition of wine in Germany, it also limited the cellar treatments for wine that were legally, defined wine regions and introduced the requirement that the declared place of origin on the label must be conform with the contents of the bottle. Through this the Nahe finally acquired the basis for realizing its potential as a self-sufficient winegrowing region.

Leading privately owned estates declared their commitment to “natural wines” (Naturweine), which at this time meant something very different to its contemporary meaning. (Organic agriculture did not exist anywhere in the world before Rudolf Steiner’s famous lectures setting out biodynamics in 1924). Then “natural” referred to un-chaptalized and otherwise un-manipulated wines, but with a normal sulfite addition (both as an antioxidant and as an antiseptic). In 1910 a number of regional groups of “natural wine” producers came together to found the Association of German Natural Wine Auctioneers (Verband Deutscher Naturweinversteigerer) who’s members guaranteed the “absolute purity and originality of their wines”.

The annual auctions of young wines in barrel, sometimes for very high prices, were the focus of the association’s activities. In 1911 the Royal Prussian Wine Domain Niederhausen-Schlossböckelheim was one of founding members of the Nahe Association of Natural Wine Auctioneers (Verein der Naturweinversteigerer an der Nahe).

The Foundation of the Royal Prussian Wine Domain in Niederhausen-Schlossböckelheim

In September 1902, the official year of the Domain’s foundation (initially with Niederhausen-Thalböckelheim in the name), extensive construction work on the vineyards and buildings began. Convict labor was also used. The first harvest was in 1907 and the naming of the top sites Niederhäuser Hermannsberg and Schlossböckelheimer Kupfergrube followed the next year. Construction work was completed in 1914 and by 1920 the estate had a vineyard area of 43.4 hectares.

The Domain as a Dynamo of Scientific and Technical Innovation

From the beginning the domain not only had a profile as a leading wine producer, but also as a place of scientific research. Shortly after its foundation it experimented with various kinds of fertilizer together with the Grand Duke of Hessen’s Agricultural Research Station in Darmstadt and with grape vines grafted on American rootstocks together with the famous Geisenheim Research Station. Another subject of research with various institutions was the battle against vineyard pests and diseases. In 1914 the Dominial Experimental Planting Schlossböckelheimer Kupfergurbe for research into insect pests was established.

A number of important innovations for German viticulture came from research work undertaken at the Domain, for example the cable winch plowing of steep vineyards was developed during the 1920s. “During the same period, mobile spraying equipment and special spray hose devices based on the bar and yoke system were already built at the domain for hillside vineyards“. In this way vineyard pests and diseases could be better combated and crop losses significantly reduced. In the 1930s the first tractor-mounted winch was developed. These methods became standard for steep vineyard cultivation from the late 1940s when the use of tractors became widespread in the German wine industry.

After the Second World War on the initiative of estate director Hermann Goedecke irrigation equipment was installed in the notoriously arid vineyards that were also frequently exposed to the risk of late frost in the spring (both problems to this day). The founding of the first industrial compost factory in Bad Kreuznach was probably also in part his work.

The situation of the Nahe wine industry was also improved through the construction of vineyard roads and the reorganization of vineyards to increase parcel size (Flurbereinigung). Further technical successes followed during the 1960s in the fields of clonal selection and temperature controlled fermentation (the latter the work of Karl-Heinz Sattelmeyer the Nahe State Domain winemaker from 1960 to 1986) through cooperation with the famous Geisenheim Wine University. To this day the Riesling clone DN400 (DN stands for Domain Niederhausen) is widely planted in German vineyards.

Becoming a Leading Wine Producer

The goal of improving the image of Nahe wines through the foundation of the Domain was rapidly achieved. This was helped by the string of very good vintages between 1910 and 1920 and the Domain achieved high prices for barrels of wine sold to wine merchants, sometimes exceeding those of the top growths from the Rhine and Mosel valleys. A contemporary wrote: “The finesse of the pure Riesling wines that grow on these volcanic melaphry and porphyry soils, their bouquet and the raciness from their pleasant acidity wins over many wine friends and experts for the Domain and the Nahe wine region as a whole.”

The journalist Ernst Hornickel commented on the Domain’s wines from the Kupfergrube site as follows: “The 1921 and 1929 vintage wines finalized the reputation of this top site the wines from which marry the finesse and elegance of Mosel Rieslings with the great harmony and polished bouquet of certain top sites in the Rheingau. In this way an old copper mine quickly became a new gold mine.“

The Domain survived the First World War undamaged, but the 1920s was a period of crisis. In 1925 the Royal Prussian Wine Domain Niederhausen-Schlossböckelheim was expanded through the addition of the State Domain in Marienthal on the Ahr. However, the string of poor vintages, hyperinflation and the plundering of the cellar during the Ruhr Crisis of 1923/4 pushed the Domain into the red.

In spite of these setbacks the reputation of the Domain continued to grow, not least because the wines were served at state functions. The first high point of this during the 1920s involved Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, later the President of the Weimar Republic. He was a frequent visitor to the Domain since the latter years of the First World War and had spoken highly of the wines in public. When Hindenburg was the guest of honor at the official celebration of the final withdrawal of the Allied occupation troops in the Rheinland on the 21st March 1926 in Cologne the city’s mayor Konrad Adenauer served the 1921 Kupfergrube Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese from the Domain. As an act of symbolic recognition for a leading wine producer it could not have been topped. The last bottle of this wine in the estate cellar bore a neck label with the words, “served in honor of General Field Marshall von Hindenburg at the liberation celebration in Cologne on the 21st March 1926.” It sold at the VDP auction in Bad Kreuznach in September 2018 for almost Euro 15,000.

Business became tougher due to the global economic crisis that began at the very end of the 1920s. In 1931 the Domain resigned from the Association of Natural Wine Auctioneers (Verband der Naturweinversteigerer), most likely because in this period, “high turnovers were more important than the auctioneers’ focus on quality.“

The wine politics of the Nazis was riven with their propaganda and orientated towards economic autonomy and the expulsion of Jewish wine merchants. The so-called political co-ordination (Gleichschaltung) that followed Hilter becoming German Chancellor in January 1933 resulted in a reorganization of the wine market. This was accompanied by another wave of modernization through the introduction of new machinery, the construction of roads and vineyard reorganization. Through the combination of good vintages and Nazi propaganda that positioned wine as a “People’s Drink” (Volksgetränk) German winegrowers profited from growing domestic demand.

In 1940 the Domain expanded its vineyard holdings with a parcel in the famous Traiser Bastei, already renowned as one of the top sites of the Nahe. Top Nazi officials ordered Domain wines in sizeable quantities. During the Second World War some of the vineyards and the press house were destroyed by bombing. Wine stocks in the Domain’s cellars were plundered by both Allied and German troops

After 1945: A New Golden Age

After the Prussian State was dissolved in 1948 the new Germany state of Rheinland-Pfalz took over the property and renamed it the Staatliche Domänen-Weinbauverwaltung, which was generally translated into English as the Nahe State Domain. Under Domain Director Hermann Goedecke (1948-1973, and 1977/78 as Acting Director) a new golden age began. Goedecke’s policy was of using scientific and technical innovation to improve wine quality. Through this and his excellent relationship with the state government he was able to further enhance the Nahe State Domaine’s profile as one of the leading wine estate of Germany. At the beginning of this period economic conditions were not easy through and the 1950s brought a string of poor vintages. Also, the demand from many consumers for sweet wines led some other German producers to sweeten up and/or otherwise illegally “improve” their wines. European integration also led to increased imports of cheap wines from the members of the European Economic Community (now the European Union).

In 1953 the State Domain rejoined the Association of Nahe Wine Auctioneers (Versteigerungsring der Naheweingüter) and during the 1950s also invested heavily in the buildings, technology and in vineyards in the top sites of Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle and Altenbamberger Rotenberg. The State Domain of Marienthal in the Ahr once again became an independent entity, so that the Nahe State Domain was then comprised of the home domain in Niederhausen-Schlossböckelheim in the Middle Nahe, plus the smaller domains in Münster-Sarmsheim on the Lower Nahe and in Altenbamberg in the valley of the Alsenz, a tributary of the Nahe. The introduction of sterile filtration (Entkeimungsfiltration) during this period enabled the Nahe State Domain to produce Riesling wines with a delicate natural grape sweetness very different from the mass produced cheap and crudely sweet wines so common at the time.

The 1971 wine law abolished the term Natural Wine (Naturwein) replacing it with the hierarchical Prädikatsystem. It also did away with thousands of vineyard names and introduced the Grosslagen designations that exploited the good reputation of many wine towns and villages. Opposition to this path steadily grew within the ranks of Germany’s leading wine producers. Their association was renamed the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP) to which the Nahe State Domain still belongs.

At this point the reputation of the Nahe State Domain reached its zenith. In 1971 in the first edition of his World Atlas of Wine the British wine journalist Hugh Johnson wrote of it: “The wine estate which has achieved the highest possible degree of perfection in the art of wine making in the area, if not in all of Germany (is)…the Nahe State Domain.“

Its standing as a leading estate during this period was underlined by the frequency with which its wines were poured at state events and were publicly praised by leading politicians. For example, when the German President Theodor Heuss visited the Nahe State Domain in March 1954 he publicly expressed his admiration for the wines. His successor to successor(?) Gustav Heinemann served a 1969 Kupfergrube Spätlese from the Domain’s cellars at Buckingham Palace during his state visit to Queen Elizabeth II in October 1972.

The Crisis of the German Wine Industry and the Decline of the Nahe State Domain.

During the 1970s and 1980s numerous wine scandals plagued the French, Italian, Austrian and German wine industries and that of Germany was pushed ever deeper into crisis. The fashion for sweet wines culminated in the liquid sugar scandal of the early 1980s. Next to the widespread illegal sugaring of wines in order to “improve” them by claiming a higher predicate (Prädikat) than the one legally applicable, the 1971 wine law also opened the door for the massive expansion of the vineyard area in many German winegrowing regions. The new vineyards were often planted with high-yielding new grape varieties (Neuzüchtungen) that easily reached the low legal minimum sugar level to be considered quality wine (Qualitätswein) or the somewhat higher level necessary to be deemed quality wine with predicate (Qualitätswein mit Prädikat). All this lead to an enormous expansion of wine production, a steady fall in bulk wine prices and a flood of cheap and sweet wine onto the domestic and export markets.

The criminality associated with this mass production reached its peak in the diethylene glycol scandal of 1985. First several large Austrian producers were found to have sweetened many wines with this substance, a relative of glycerol that is best known for its use in anti-freeze for cars. Then it came out that several large German producers had illegally blended tainted Austrian wines with domestic wine. No evidence of anyone’s health being affected was every presented, but the damage had been done. The image of both Austrian and German wines was suddenly and massively eroded, sales plummeting in the domestic and export markets. During this period a new, younger generation of German wine consumers appeared who’s first experiences of wine was as tourists in Italy and France. They were either very critical of German wines or rejected them out of hand.

The Nahe State Domain was not involved in any of these scandals, quite the contrary: the new German wine journalism of the 1980s was full of praise for the estate’s wines and the Nahe State Domain was included on in many hit lists of the country’s best producers published in various magazines. Also the Nahe State Domain’s wines continued to be served at state events. In July 1981 the 1959 Kupfergrube Trockenbeerenauslese was served at the marriage of the heir to the British throne Charles Prince of Wales with Lady Diane Spencer. However, these successes couldn’t hide the fact that the estate was suffering from a sales problem.

Additionally, after the crisis that afflicted the German wine industry in the 1980s it was primarily smaller wine estates in private ownership with dynamic young winemakers who attracted attention, some of them also through pushing for a vineyard classification in Germany similar to that in Burgundy and Alsace in France. At this time the Nahe State Domain suffered the effects of “reglementation of viticulture by the state, reticent decisions and the missing of vital course corrections.“

With the great 1989 vintage the Nahe State Domain gained significant international recognition for the last time, but the estate was already in financial difficulties. When the Auditors Office (Rechnungshof) of Rheinland-Pfalz pointed to a string of years with losses the politicians reacted by selling vineyards. The attempt to increase sales through wine price reductions failed. Although the Auditors Office demanded that profits regularly be made, in 1991 the agricultural minister of Rheinland-Pfalz defined the role of the state wine domains as follows: “It shouldn’t be their job to help fill the state’s coffers, but to improve the image of the wines of Germany’s largest wine producing state.”

In spite of these fine words from the state government the decline of the Nahe State Domain continued. The excellent vintages 1988 to 1990 turned out to virtually unsalable and in 1992 the estate’s wine sales collapsed. In July 1993 the regional Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper commented: “The former flagship of the Nahe wine industry…is in danger of sinking“.

In October 1993 the state government decided upon a rescue package for all its state domains. While the others were all linked to institutes of higher education and therefore didn’t need to make money, the Nahe State Domain was forced to stand on its own feet and turn a profit. Almost a third of the vineyards were sold and the estate became a limited company (GmbH) under state ownership.

In 1994 the wine journalist Stuart Pigott wrote: “When I think of the astonishing Rieslings that this estate made in 1983, when it belonged to the top ten wine producers of Germany, then the current crisis makes me despair. With my whole heart I hope that the state of Rheinland-Pfalz…will undertake the necessary steps for the rebuilding of the estate’s reputation.“

However, in spite of a change in director and the introduction of new products things didn’t get any better. The “wavering course“ of the state government that insisted it stood by the Nahe State Domain while offered to sell some of tis top vineyards for rock bottom prices eroded the ground on which the Nahe State Domain stood. For some time the state government’s reaction to rumors of an impending sale of the estate was denial, but the economic situation of the Nahe State Domain remained precarious and in January 1998 they changed their position. Suddenly the estate was for sale and in April 1998 the Pfalz businessman Erich Maurer paid 4.8 million Deutschmarks for the real estate and all the vineyard and cellar equipment, plus 2.7 million Deutschmarks for the wine stock.

A New Start as a Private Enterprise

From the Nahe State Domain to the “Gutsverwaltung Niederhausen-Schlossböckelheim (1998-2009)

Erich Maurer made substantial investments in the estate that he renamed the “Gutsverwaltung Niederhausen-Schlossböckelheim”. In spite of some successes the lack of a successor within the family led him to sell the estate in August 2009 to the entrepreneur couple Jens Reidel and Dr. Christine Dinse.

Back to the Top as a Leading Wine Estate (since 2009)

In 2010 the new owners renamed the estate Gut Hermannsberg, began extensive renovations of the historic ensemble of buildings and the construction of the new press house (unmistakable due to its copper cladding). From the beginning Jens Reidel and Dr. Christine Dinse declared their commitment to the cultural inheritance of the estate that went back to its foundation as Royal Prussian Domain, a position thoroughly documented in the extensively researched chronicle of the estate by Dr. Christine Dinse published in March 2012, (then updated in 2019). However, this commitment is most clear in the wines themselves.

Under the direction of the Riedel family and the winemaker Karsten Peter (since September 2009) Gut Hermannsberg is focused on the production of high quality dry Rieslings, those with vineyard designations all being marketed as VDP. Grosse Gewächse (GGs), the unofficial German equivalent to the Grand Crus of France. In line with the traditional methods used at the Domain all the wines from the estate’s 30 hectares of vineyards are “wild” fermented (i.e. without the addition of cultured yeast) and mature on the full lees (the deposit of yeast from fermentation) for between half a year and almost two years to give them more complexity and a longer life.

Every GG spends at least one year maturing before release, while those from the Bastei and Hermannsberg being released at two years of age, and from the 2017 vintage the Kupfergrube GG will only be released at five years (after almost two years on the lees, then a further three years of maturation in the bottle) as a GG Reserve. Parallel to this, through the addition of wines from the VDP. Grossen Lagen sites Rotenberg, Steinberg and Felsenberg the number of GGs produced each year has been increased to six.

The range of dry Rieslings below the GGs has also been transformed. The first “Just Riesling!” Estate Riesling was produced from the 2012 vintage and 7 Terroirs, a dry Estate Riesling produced only from the estate’s seven VDP. Grossen Lagen sites where the GGs originate, was launched with the 2018 vintage.

In particular, the estate’s GGs have become well known and have been frequently praised by leading wine critics. In 2011 the Gault Millau annual wine guide named Gut Hermannsberg “Rising Star of the Year” and in 2016 the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung national newspaper declared Karsten Peter “Winemaker of the Year”. Several nobly sweet wines also earned high praise. In 2017 Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate awarded the 2015 Kupfergrube Trockenbeerenauslese the perfect 100 points. The sole magnum of this wine was sold at auction for more than Euro 12,000.

Since May 2018 Jasper Reidel, the youngest son of Jens Reidel has directed the estate together with winemaker Karsten Peter and Achim Kirchner, who is responsible for sales and distribution. Since March 2019 the renowned wine journalist Stuart Pigott has worked for the estate as “Riesling Ambassador”.

The Vineyard Sites of Gut Hermannsberg

Altenbamberger Rotenberg: 4 hectares

Niederhäuser Hermannsberg: 5,25 hectare (monopoly site) Niederhäuser Rossel Monopol: 1 hectare (monopoly site) Niederhäuser Steinberg: 5,5 hectares

Schlossböckelheimer Felsenberg: 1 hectare Schlossböckelheimer Kupfergrube: 12 hectares

Traiser Bastei: 1 hectare