Gault&Millau honours Germany’s top ten winemakers for the first time with five red grapes
Gault&Millau is also founding the “Gault&Millau Academy” and inviting the best winemakers and chefs/hosts to a common initiative as part of a celebratory lunch.
A novelty for Gault&Millau Germany
Munich/ Baiersbronn, 6.07.2022 – A memorable moment in a special atmosphere: Gault&Millau honoured Germany’s ten best winegrowers, all of them world-renowned, and awarded five red grapes for the first time this year – a novelty for the 30-year anniversary of Germany’s most famous wine guide. The location was the Morlokhof, a historic farmhouse owned by the Hotel Bareiss and extensively restored some 20 years ago on behalf of G&M Chef of the Year 2022 Hermann Bareiss. In addition to the well-known hotel owner, the following winemakers were present in Baiersbronn on 3 July and were honoured Dr. Katharina Prüm, Weingut Joh. Jos. Prüm an der Mosel, Wilhelm Weil, Weingut Robert Weil im Rheingau, Hansjörg and Matthias Aldinger, Weingut Aldinger im Remstal, Volker Raumland, Sekthaus Raumland in Rheinhessen, Julian Huber, Weingut Bernhard Huber im Breisgau, Paul Fürst, Weingut Rudolf Fürst in Chur-Franken, Valentin Rebholz, Weingut Ökonomierat Rebholz in der Pfalz et Helmut Dönnhoff, Weingut Dönnhoff an der Nahe. Publisher Hans Fink and Otto Geisel, Chairman of the Board of Experts, presented the certificates. The awards are published in the current Gault & Millau book “Germany’s best wines”.
In addition, the participants founded the “Gault&Millau Academy” together with Christoph Wirtz, editor-in-chief of G&M. Together with the ten best wine producers and twelve best chefs in Germany, the aim is to make the innovative and future-oriented experiences and discoveries in wine, cooking, nutrition and life culture even more well-known and aware, both for the professional world and the public.
The reasons for the awards in detail, also for the absent Egon Müller and Klaus Peter Keller:
Robert Weil
The fascination of Weil wines is difficult to put into words, their elegance and solidity make you look with wonder at what is in the glass. This distinctive style, which has shaped the Rheingau style since 1987 by Wilhelm Weil, the great-grandson of the founder Dr. Robert Weil, can perhaps be explained by exceptionally good locations such as Gräfenberg and Turmberg, of course also by the use of the most sophisticated cellar technology and the almost meticulous search for the best quality. Or with the fact that one does not rely on the tradition of the house, but despite everything success always turns new fine screws.
Egon Müller IV
It is only ten kilometres from the former imperial city of Trier to the small but beautiful wine town of Wiltingen an der Saar, where a man produces such amazing Rieslings that he has been revered nationally and internationally as the “Emperor of German Winegrowing”. Egon Müller IV, the majestic vineyard of Scharzhofberg, produces in the sixth generation the best world-class wines. The winery has been a family business since the 18th century, the origins of which go back to the year 700.
Manfred Prüm et Katharina
The pure Riesling estate Joh. Jos. Prüm, was founded in 1911 after a division of the estate and has without any doubt belonged to the Olympus of the world’s wineries for decades. Perhaps it is because the makers have never become operationally blind, Manfred Prüm and his daughter Katharina are both PhD lawyers who bring their exceptional wines to the bottle with an enormous amount of feelings and winemaking expertise, which in their conception allow for only one verdict: world class. A wonder of the wine world in itself are the best places in the middle Mosel, especially the Wehlen sundial and the Graacher Himmelreich, guarantee for the most elegant and extremely independent Rieslings, which seem almost immortal in their many years of refreshing drinking.
Hansjörg et Matthias Aldinger
The standard for Hansjörg and Matthias Aldinger was very high when they took over the responsibility for the wines of father Gert. But with passion and a lot of sensitivity, they have made the already strong portfolio a little finer, more differentiated and more precise. Whether Lemberger, Pinot Noir or Riesling: the Fellbach company shines everywhere, so that even the Trollinger, revived with enthusiasm, can convince the best Sauvignon of the republic as well as the overwhelming sparkling wine Brut Nature.
Volker Raumland
For 30 years, Volker Raumland has devoted himself exclusively to the production of sparkling wines from the best basic wines, whose hand-picked grapes grow on ten hectares of certified organic vineyards. Extremely competent, subtle compositions are left on the yeast for a long time in this sparkling wine house to give fine sparkling wines their special touch. With daughters Marie-Luise and Katharina, the next generation is already active and will continue to ensure that the German sparkling wine culture further consolidates its national and international reputation with the impulses of Raumland.
Julian Huber
If you wanted to taste excellent Pinot Noirs in the past, you had to go to Bourgogne region. Today, a diversion to Malterdingen to the Bernhard Huber winery is enough. With the support of his mother Barbara, Julian Huber succeeds in producing extremely expressive Pinot Noirs rich in delicacy year after year. Julian Huber runs the estate with his own ideas in his head and his father’s legacy in his heart. The company’s main sites are Malterdinger Bienenberg, Hecklinger Schlossberg, Bombacher Sommerhalde and Alte Burg in Köndringen.
Paul Fürst
Years ago, with perseverance and peace of mind, Paul Fürst transformed his parents cellar into a place of pilgrimage for deep red Bourgogne, for they grow nowhere else but on the Côte d’Or. An extremely successful vinological symbiosis with a delicate fine and rich taste profile, wines that today enjoy cult status. His son Sebastian has taken the lead since a long time and continues his father’s proverbial consistency, plays with the same confidence with the white grape varieties and guarantees the unique class of the Fürst wines, which still set standards every year.
Cornelius Dönnhoff
For years, the Oberhausen winery has been producing plants of monumental brilliance, works of vinological art with a down-to-earth attitude. Anyone who thought that succession from father to son was the end of high flying had to learn otherwise. Cornelius Dönnhoff is in no way inferior to his father, the sweet dry and residual Rieslings are also extraordinary and first class under his leadership. Again and again, the wines of the Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle, which Helmut Dönnhoff has made into one of Germany’s most famous vineyards with its imposing, but very elegant and long-lasting wines, impressive.
Hansjörg, Birgit Rebholz & sons
The renunciation of control without loss of control only works if the winemaker approaches this challenging industry with peace and serenity combined with the greatest wealth of knowledge: this is exactly what describes the nature and working methods of the Ökonomierat Rebholz winery with Hansjörg and Birgit as well as the sons Valentin and Hans. Their wines reflect the family’s respect for the entire age-old Palatinate winegrowing landscape. Under the control of the Rebholz family, the unique sites Kastanienbusch, Im Sonnenschein and Ganz Horn produce incomparable, impressive and storable wines.
Klaus Peter Keller
For decades, the Keller family winery in Flörsheim-Dalsheim has been the focus of many wine lovers around the world and can safely be described as an exceptional operation. Winemaker Klaus Peter Keller produces one vintage after another in peace and without too much worry for himself. Without him and his wines, Rheinhessen would for sure be poorer for a passionate winemaker’s personality with rough edges and an uncompromising drive for quality. Keller’s wines are excellent as the figurehead of Rheinhessen and at the same time as the best example of the rise of a long underestimated region to the vinological Olympus, where the wines are collected at a world-class level.