Bremen Ratskeller

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bremen Ratskeller
Ratskeller, 1955

The Bremer Ratskeller is a traditional restaurant and wine shop in the cellar of the Bremen town hall . As part of the building complex, it has been a listed building since 1973. German wines have been stored and sold there since it was built in 1405 . With over 600 years of existence, the Bremer Ratskeller is one of the oldest wine cellars in Germany, and the oldest barrel wine in Germany, a Rüdesheim wine from 1653 , is stored here .

history

The main entrance to the Ratskeller
The back exit of the Ratskeller

Since 1330, the Bremen council had the privilege of serving white wine in the city, which was not tacitly extinguished until 1815. According to a document from the year 1342, a ban on serving was even issued so that “no ordinary citizen let wine run, but only the councilor”, i.e. the wine lords elected by the council . For this purpose, a “city wine cellar” was set up in which all traders and innkeepers had to store their wines. This was intended to monitor prices and income from taxes. After the construction of the old town hall in 1405, the bar was moved to its basement. Originally, you could only choose between two wines from the Rheinhessen region : the common and the better .

In 1550 the Ratskeller was expanded to include the Apostelkeller and the Senate room, and in 1599 the Rosekeller. The numerous cozy chambers, in which groups of three or more people can still hide from the view of the other guests behind wooden doors, were built around 1600 and were heated with small stoves. In 1620 the later Bacchus and Hauff cellars were built as a wine store.

In 1805, French soldiers looted part of the holdings in the Ratskeller. After the Second World War , this was done by the Americans who used the rooms as an officers' mess before regular hospitality could resume.

Nowadays, the entire Ratskeller is owned by the Bremer Ratskeller GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of the city of Bremen. With around 650 varieties, the Ratskeller has the world's largest range of exclusively German wines, and around 1,200 different spirits are offered in total. The Ratskeller's gastronomic area is leased to the Hotel zur Post in Bremen .

The basement rooms

Partial floor plan of the Bremen Ratskeller: 1) Great Hall, 2) In front of the Bacchus, 3) Hauffsaal, 4) Apostel and Rose Cellar, 5) Senate and Imperial Room, 6) Bacchus Cellar, 7) Guild room and old treasury, 8) Warehouse and new treasury
Extension of the Ratskeller under Our Lady Churchyard (without kitchen and storage rooms)

The entire complex is over 5,000 m 2 and extends under the Old and New Town Hall, Liebfrauenkirchhof and Domshof .

Big hall

Size: 300 m 2

This three-aisled vault supported by 20 columns, which is also known as the "Historical Hall" or "Large Column Hall", represents the foundation of the Old Town Hall, built in 1405, and is therefore the oldest part of the Ratskeller. On the north side of the hall there are four large magnificent barrels from the 18th century, which are decorated with intricate carvings: the monkey barrel , the lion barrel , the dragon barrel and the dolphin barrel . The largest of them dates from 1737 and has a capacity of 37,000 bottles. For reasons of quality, however, no wine is stored here anymore.

On the south side (towards the market square ) there are six Priölken furnished in 1599 ( Low German for 'arbor' or 'small, friendly room'): wood-paneled, semicircular séparées for four to five people. Originally, the Priölken were used by merchants to talk to their returning captains about contracts and business. For reasons of decency, the doors to these chambers may traditionally only be closed when more than three people are seated at the table.

Before the Bacchus

Size: 80 m 2

Initially, this area was just a narrow corridor leading from the Great Hall to the Bacchus Cellar. In 1847 it was expanded to expand the Great Hall. Here is the so-called cat barrel embedded in a wall , as well as a painting with a representation of the Bremen Roland .

Hauffsaal

Size: 109 m 2

Originally laid out as a wine store, this room was named in the 19th century in honor of the writer Wilhelm Hauff, who, after visiting the Bremer Ratskeller in 1826, wrote his well-known novella Fantasias in the Bremer Ratskeller - an autumn gift for friends of wine .

“You climb a few steps from the cellar to the little cellar, to the underground vault of heaven, to the seat of bliss, where the twelve live. What are you, mourning vaults and tombs of old royal houses, against these catacombs! [...] There they lie in their dark brown coffins, unadorned, without shine or tinsel. No marble praises its quiet merit, its undemanding virtue, its excellent character; But what man with a certain feeling for virtues of this kind does not feel deeply moved when the old councilor, this attendant in the catacombs, this sexton of the underground church, puts the candles on the coffins, when the light then shines on the lofty names of the great ones Dead falls! Like ruling heads, they too do not have long titles and surnames; The names are written simply and in large letters on their brown coffins. There Andreas, here Johannes, in that corner Judas, in this Peter. Who does not care when he hears: there lies the noble von kidney stone, born in 1718, here that of Rüdesheim, born in 1726. Paulus on the right, Jakob on the left, the good Jakob! "

- Wilhelm Hauff : Fantasies in the Bremen Ratskeller (excerpt), 1826

In 1927 the walls of the hall were decorated with four large-format pictures in frescoes by Max Slevogt based on this work .

The Haufsaal is also known as the “echo hall” or “whisper room”, as conversations that are whispered on one side can be heard clearly on the other side of the room without the people sitting in the middle understanding anything.

  • Hauffsaal

  • detail

Apostel and Rose Cellars

Size (together): approx. 80 m 2

The Apostelkeller owes its name to the twelve oak barrels that are stored here, six on either side of the vault. The barrels with a capacity of 1200 l contain Rhine wines from the 18th century. The name of the Rose Keller, however, derives from the earlier common name Rose for a particularly high-quality wine from. At the front of the cellar is the "rose barrel" in which the famous Rüdesheim wine from 1653 is stored.

"That is the rose of roses,
the older it gets, the lovelier it blooms,
and its heavenly scent, it made me happy,
it inspired me, it got intoxicated,
and didn't hold on to my head,
the council cellar master from Bremen,
I would have tumbled! "

- Heinrich Heine : Book of Songs, The North Sea, Second Cycle, In the Harbor (excerpt), 1825–1826

On the ceiling above the rose barrel there is a picture of a rose from 1602. Since this chamber was once used by the councilors for confidential meetings (until 1807 you could only enter the apostle and rose cellar when accompanied by a councilor), it became a citizen also in Bremen the phrase “ sub rosa ” ( Latin for “under the rose”) was used for a conversation about which silence was kept.

The very old wines stored in these two chambers are all still drinkable and have a taste of sherry , just like the smell in these cellar rooms. The wines are not for sale, and only the cellar master and the incumbent mayor are authorized to taste the 1653 Rüdesheimer.

In early 2014, a billionaire from China allegedly offered to pay a price of 150,000 euros for a bottle of wine from the rose barrel from 1653, which in retrospect turned out to be a suspected translation error.

  • Apostel and Rose Cellars

  • Rose barrel from 1653

  • More old wines

  • Basement ceiling

Senate and imperial rooms

Size (together): 80 m 2

Originally these two rooms were reserved for the reception of guests from the Senate, today they are rented out by the Ratskeller. The Senate Room is adorned with a Rococo oven, like the sculpture of the Town Musicians of Bremen, cast according to a design by Heinrich Möller in Bremen at the instigation of Mayor Marcus, and on the head side as on the side of the Kaiserzimmer, in which Kaiser Wilhelm II from 1890 to 1914 . was a guest once a year for a morning pint , there are two paintings by Arthur Fitger from 1875, one shows four wine song writers, the Greek Anakreon, the "Wandsbecker Boten", Matthias Claudius, the Roman Quintus Horatius Flacvus and the "Trumpeter von Säckingen" ", Victor Scheffel and the other the Bacchus Festival, or the wine god Bacchus in a happy group.

Bacchus cellar

Size: 306 m 2

Built in 1620 as a wine store, this large vault supported by twelve columns was only used for serving in the last days of October when the Bremen Freimarkt is celebrated. When the warehouse was relocated to new cellars in 1926, the vault was expanded into a guest room.

At the front of the vault is the barrel with the figure of Bacchus from the Baroque period , from which the hall owes its name. To the right and left of it are two large Priölken for 10 to 12 people each, the Meeskenkiste ( Low German for 'Meisenkasten') and the Uhlenlock ( Low German for 'Eulenloch'). The walls of the Bacchus cellar are decorated with pictures by the painter Karl Dannemann .

Nowadays, wine tastings in the Ratskeller take place several times a year in the Bacchuskeller.

  • Bacchus cellar

  • Bacchus barrel in the Bacchus cellar

  • Painting in the Bacchus cellar

Guild room and old treasury

Size (together): 73 m 2

The guild room, which adjoins the Bacchuskeller on the right, was - as the name suggests - originally reserved for the Bremen guilds. In the treasury to the left behind the Bacchus cellar, however, the most valuable wines used to be stored.

  • Guild room

  • Old treasury

  • Ceiling of the old treasury

Warehouse and new treasury

In the widely ramified storage cellars, which are connected to the old vaults to the north, excellent bottled wines of all vintages are stored four meters below ground, the oldest of which dates from 1727. The warehouse has a total capacity of 500,000 bottles. The barrel cellar, on the other hand, with a total capacity of half a million liters, is no longer used today.

The particularly valuable wines, 150 different Trockenbeerenauslese alone, are stored in the so-called "treasure chamber" with a capacity of 36,000 bottles. The treasury may only be entered in the company of the cellar master. His job is also to select the wines from all 13 German wine-growing regions , which are newly stored every year.

  • Labeling

  • Tools

  • General bottle storage

  • Special bottle storage

  • Entrance door to the barrel cellar

  • Barrel cellar

  • Stone barrel

  • Treasury

  • Wines stored in the treasure chamber, here from the Trier-Saarburg district

The wines

Every year 150 wines from 3,000 wines are selected from the new German vintage by the cellar master of the Bremer Ratskeller. On the bottle labels of the wines sold by the Bremen Ratskeller, the name Bremer Ratskeller is also printed in addition to the description of the type of wine, location, vintage, producer. 650 different types of wine are served in the Ratskeller. In the Bremer Ratskeller wine trade, 1,200 varieties from different vintages are sold. There are Ratskeller tours with a visit to the Rosekeller.

Famous guests of the Ratskeller

literature

poetry

  • Hermann Gutmann : The Ratskeller in Bremen. History and stories from six centuries . Edition Temmen, Bremen 2005, ISBN 3-86108-191-1
  • Wilhelm Hauff : Fantasies in the Bremen Ratskeller, an autumn present for friends of wine . 1827

Movies

Web links

Commons : Bremer Ratskeller  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Monument database of the LfD
  2. ↑ Hendrik Ternieden: Offer for record wine: The Bremer, their Rüdesheimer and a rich Chinese. In: Spiegel Online . February 7, 2014, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Bremer Ratskeller: Fine German wines in a worldwide unique selection. Brochure from approx. 2015.
  4. ^ Johann-Günther König : Bremen. Literary walks in Frankfurt am Main [a. a.]: Insel-Verlag, 2000, pp. 99–116.

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 34 "  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 29"  E