Our Vineyards

On around 12 hectares

of the surrounding cultivation area of Brauneberg and its neighbouring communities, our wines grow and flourish.

Controlled low harvest quantities, a strict selection of the grapes (all grapes are harvested and sorted by hand) as well as a particularly gentle grape processing without mechanical stress, guarantee the highest quality.

Steep slopes

In addition to the trademark of our winery, the Brauneberger Juffer site, we also own plots in the old traditional sites of Kestener Paulinshofberg, Piesporter Goldtröpfchen, Wintricher Geierslay and Oligsberg, Mülheimer Sonnenlay, Veldenzer

Grafschafter Sonnenberg as well as Dhroner Hofberg, from which we produce our best Rieslings and Pinot Noirs.

Our pride

Brauneberger Juffer

Exposure

South slope

Soil type

Blue - grey-brown mixed slate soil, partly with sand and gravel deposits.

Steep slopes

80°

Grape varieties

Riesling

From Thomas Jefferson to Theodor Fontane to the English royal family, the Brauneberger Juffer is the epitome of Riesling enjoyment at the highest level! Napoleon counted the site among the pearls of the Moselle. 

 

The name Juffer originated around 1790, when the three unmarried daughters (Juffern) of the Electoral Palatinate chamberlain Wunderlich cultivated wine in Brauneberg. Since then, the wine from this steep slope - Brauneberger Juffer - has become a household name for wine connoisseurs all over the world. The name Brauneberger Juffer has always stood for top-quality wines that are known far beyond our borders. In old wine auction lists and chronicles, Brauneberger Juffer is always found among the finest Riesling wines.

 

The Juffer vineyard is a pure south-facing slope of blue-grey Devonian slate with gradients of up to 80% and today covers an area of approx. 31 ha. The 10-hectare section that stretches around the sundial is called the Juffer sundial. In the past, sundials were only erected in purely southern locations with optimal solar radiation.

 

The Brauneberger Juffer and Juffer-Sonnenuhr steep slopes develop a very special microclimate. In August 1998, Jörg Kachelmann's ARD weather station, which is located in this site, recorded the highest daily temperature of 41.2°C ever measured in Germany.

 

If one wants to produce wine in the Brauneberger Juffer, this is only possible through manual labour. By carrying out the vine work by hand, one can respond individually to the needs of each vine. Every bottle of Riesling from the Brauneberger Juffer is produced with the utmost care and attention to detail!

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GRAPE VARIETIES

Our pride

Kestener Paulinshofberg, Paulinsberg & Herrenberg

Exposure

Southeast slope

Soil type

silver grey slate floor

Steep slopes

45°

Grape varieties

Riesling

Paulin was a so-called collegiate foundation, a community of collegiate canons. Unlike monks in convents, these do not belong to a religious order. They live at a particular church, in this case St. Paulin in Trier, and are responsible for the upkeep of the church, i.e. the church services, property management and the like. In most cases, the Pauline canons were noble and lived in the collegiate curiae, some of which are still preserved around St. Paulin today. Another well-known monastery was St. Simeon, the Porta Nigra. What remains of it is the Simeonstift, today's Brunnenhof. Unlike monks, collegiate clergy keep their property and are free to leave the monastery as there are no vows. St. Paulin was one of the most famous and richest monasteries, and becoming a canon there was an honour and associated with income. St. Paulin is named after the church dedicated to St. Paulinus or Paulin, which still exists today. Paulinus was Bishop of Trier from 346 to 353, came from Aquitaine, appropriately the region around Bordeaux, and died in exile in Phrygia, now Turkey. His relics lie in the church in Trier. Like monasteries, these monasteries were endowed with property by secular rulers, often land. The Paulinshof was donated to the Trier monastery in the 10th century by the East Franconian King Henry I, the document dates from Henry's year of death 936. In addition to rights such as tithing rights, etc., the court was also associated with the so-called vineyards. o This is what it says in the standard work "Das Erzbistum Trier" by Franz-Josef Heyen. Among other things, there is mention of four Picturas (Pichter) vineyards in Casteneith (Kesten). Therefore, the names, which also exist identically elsewhere, e.g. in Kasel on the Ruwer, are self-explanatory. Herrenberg refers to the canons of the Paulin monastery and is a common field name. To this day, the "Häär" in Mosel Franconian is the name for a cleric. The canonship ended with the abolition of the monasteries and convents by the French in 1803, who confiscated such properties as state property and auctioned them off to private individuals. This is how most of today's vineyards came into being. The field names, however, remained the old ones.

Our pride

Piesporter Goldtröpfchen & Treppchen

Exposure

South slope

Soil type

silver-grey slate weathered soil

Steep slopes

55°

Grape varieties

Riesling

History and interesting facts: As early as the fourth century, the spectacular slate escarpments that rise up to 200 metres here were planted by the Romans. Even the famous poet and educator of princes at the emperor's court, Ausonius, recognising the genius loci, put the incomparable panorama to be found here into words in 371, representative of the entire river valley, in his "Mosella".

Previously, parts of this imposing slope, which opens like an amphitheatre from the southwest across the south to the southeast, had already been cultivated in Celtic times.

As early as the early Middle Ages, in 777, a document proves that some Piesport vineyards were donated to the Benedictine Abbey in Prüm. This document is the oldest written evidence of viticulture on the Moselle in the early Middle Ages.

Riesling has been planted here as a grape variety since the 15th century. It has been firmly rooted in this top site of the Middle Moselle since the 18th century through the decree of Elector Clemens Wenzeslaus in 1786, according to which Riesling vines were to be planted everywhere in his state.

Later, the site was listed as "Klasse 1 - Lage" in the 1868 version of the Prussian viticultural map already mentioned.

Another written record of the quality of the wines from this district also dates from 1868. At that time, according to a cellar book from 1875, a winegrower from Piesport sold a total of thirteen bottles of 1868 Piesporter Goldtröpfchen to Berlin at a price of 6 marks per bottle.

In addition to its exposure, the Goldtröpfchen benefits from the hill of the downstream neighbouring village of Minheim, which protects it from cold easterly winds, as well as from the forested hilltops above the vineyards, which exhale cool air at night and thus increase the fluctuations between day and night temperatures, which contributes to the enhanced aroma formation in the grapes.

Our pride

Wintricher Geierslay & Oligsberg

Exposure

South slope

Soil type

purple slate soil heavily interspersed with quartzite and iron

Steep slopes

55°

Grape varieties

Riesling

History and interesting facts: As early as the beginning of the 19th century, the renowned Böcking wine trading family from Trarbach, which had also achieved considerable wealth through activities in mining, had acquired vineyard property in this picturesque side valley in the course of secularisation from Napoleonic officials. In addition to significant parts of the neighbouring Ohligsberg and Großer Herrgott vineyards, this also included the five-hectare Geierslay vineyard, which was the sole property of the Böckings.

In addition, the family also maintained an agricultural estate above the Wintrich valley. This farm, located in the Kasholz district, was managed for the production of agricultural products. However, it was also used for the production of manure, which was brought to Geierslay by carts along narrow forest paths and used there as fertiliser for the vineyards.

This estate also included its own windmill, which had a rock grinding mill that served to crush the slate rock. For this purpose, the slate was first crushed in the Geierslay, carted over steep passages to the mill, ground there and transported back to the vineyards in powdered form, where it was added to the earth on the spot as a kind of additional "mineral fertiliser". This gigantic effort underlines the enormous importance of the site at that time

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Wintrich Geierslay and the surrounding properties were also transferred by marriage from the Böckings to the Adolf Huesgen wine estate family, another important wine trading dynasty in the then wine trading metropolis of Traben - Trabach, whose ancestors had immigrated to the Moselle from the Lower Rhine in 1735.

Valued in the Prussian wine map as a class 1 site, the growths from the Geierslay were for a long time among the most expensive on the Moselle. At several auctions at the end of the 19th century, the most famous vineyards of the Moselle were often outshone by this area of about five hectares.

Our pride

Dhroner Hofberg

Exposure

South slope

Soil type

Grey-brown mixed slate

Steep slopes

65°

Grape varieties

Riesling

History and interesting facts: This high-quality, steep south-facing site is located in an idyllic side valley to the Moselle along the Drohn river. Today, vines are cultivated here on almost 85 hectares. The valley was already cultivated with vines in Roman times. Its importance is also reflected in the fact that many parcels of land were already owned by ecclesiastical lords, monasteries or monasteries in the Middle Ages.

Karl Heinrich Koch, in his well-known book "Moselwein - Zu Lob und Preis des Moselweins" (Mosel Wine - In Praise and Price of the Mosel Wine), published in 1897, had this to say about this site: "The vineyards in the side valley of the Thron make the end [of Neumagen], but a glorious one... ". And: "The Throner Hofberg stands among the Mosel brands of reputation, and not insignificant is the viticulture of the village Thron on more than 300 acres". The site had already been classified as a Class 1 site in the aforementioned "Clotten Map".

Our pride

Wehlener Sonnenuhr

Exposure

Southeast slope

Soil type

Blue Slate

Steep slopes

45°

Grape varieties

Riesling

has a south to southwest facing slope and is located at an altitude of 110 to 195 meters above sea level. The predominantly blue slate soil retains heat during the day and balances the temperature on colder nights, ensuring the grapes ripen even in cooler vintages. The Moselle also reflects sunlight onto the vines and carries the cold wind downstream.