Dujardin (company)
The Dujardin GmbH and Co. KG, formerly. Gebr. Melcher is a manufacturer of brandy and other spirits. The Melcher family owns the distillery in Uerdingen am Rhein . The manufacture and sale of the products is taken over by the company Schwarze & Schlichte Markenvertrieb GmbH & Co. KG in Oelde ( Westphalia ).
Current products
- "Dujardin Fine" is a cognac with the predicate V.SOP under the trademark Dujardin.
- "Dujardin Imperial" is a brandy with the VSOP predicate for which it has to be aged in oak barrels for at least four years .
- "Uerdinger" is a double juniper ( gin ).
- "Melcher's Rat" is a brandy based on the original recipe of the progenitor and first master distiller Wilhelm Heinrich Melcher.
Previous products
- "Dujardin Fine" is a brandy with the predicate XO (Extra Old) and has matured for at least eight years.
- "St. John Jamaica Rum - Blend "is a blend of rum.
- "CURACITA", "Dujardin Triple Sec" is a Triple Sec Curacao - liqueur .
- “Melcher's Klar Hell” is a mild wheat grain .
- "Orlow" is a vodka based on a more than 150 year old recipe by the Koscheleffs from Moscow .
history
In 1743 Wilhelm Heinrich Melcher, a "patented brandy distiller", was granted citizenship of the city of Uerdingen on the Rhine. Melcher had had a distilling concession since 1780 and produced grain and juniper schnapps in the former "Pigeon House". In 1810 his son Henry Melcher also began to produce cognac , which he had entered in the Code de commerce , the forerunner of today's commercial register , which was newly created by the French under Napoleonic occupation . The Melchers obtained the wine they needed from the Dujardin family of winemakers from the Château des Mérigots in Charente in France , with whom they soon entered into a cooperation and established the Dujardin & Compagnie company. Gebr. Melcher founded. In 1889 700 hl were already distilled. Dujardin became a brand name to which the Melcher family remained loyal even after the death of A. Dujardin. After the First World War , according to the Treaty of Versailles, the name cognac was no longer allowed to be used by manufacturers in Germany. "Cognac" became "German brandy". In the following years the company grew to become the largest manufacturer of brandy in Germany.
A new production facility was built on the banks of the Rhine in Uerdingen by 1930. The company had access to the water and a siding here . In the devastating air raid by the Allied air forces on August 22, 1943, the production facility was completely destroyed. Before the attack, some distillates could be brought to a safe place, with which production could be continued temporarily until the distillery was completely rebuilt in 1947. After the Second World War , the Uerdinger wine distillery, still owned by the Melcher family, was soon again the second largest in Germany. The advertising slogan "Darauf eine Dujardin ..." was created in 1952 and made the brand better known.
From 1954 Dujardin had its own seagoing ship, the MS Imperial . The Rhine connected the distillery to the wine ports of France via Rotterdam . The warehouse was expanded to three times its capacity and the loading facilities were modernized. Dujardin employed over 450 people at the time. The MS Imperial brought around 400,000 liters of distilled wine from France directly to Uerdingen every two weeks.
In 1983, Hanno W. Melcher (1936–2016) joined the family company in the seventh generation. In the same year Dujardin merged with the company Pott & Racke. The administration was relocated to Bingen am Rhein in 1983 , and bottling followed in 1993. The distillery continued in Uerdingen. In 2006 Racke licensed the distribution rights to the brands "Dujardin Imperial", "Uerdinger" and "Melchers Rat" to the Westphalian spirits manufacturer Schwarze & Schlichte. This upgraded the “Dujardin Imperial” brand with a new design for the premium sector. In 2006, an average of eleven employees in Uerdingen produced brandy in 12,000 300-liter Limousin oak barrels. The Racke company withdrew completely from the liquor business in 2006. Since then, operations have been largely idle. The family still holds the rights to the brands “Dujardin Imperial”, “Melchers Rat” and “Uerdinger”, but only “Uerdinger” is still distilled in Uerdingen.
The Melcher family owns the historic buildings and the distillery. The rooms are rented to artists for workshops, studios and exhibitions. The historic factory of the former largest wine distillery in Germany can be visited on Saturdays and Sundays.
Matthias Melcher has been causing a sensation in the city on the Rhine with his plans for the distillery since the beginning of 2009 . Melcher first studied medical informatics. Shortly before his diploma thesis, however, he turned around and trained as a director at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. Melcher went to the USA , where he worked on the digital effects of the film Titanic, among other things . A beer garden has been in the building's courtyard since summer 2009. In 2010 a restaurant, shops, offices and loft apartments followed, which fit into the distillery's inventory of monuments.
Monument protection
On December 14, 2009, the district council unanimously approved a partial protection of the distillery proposed by the city administration. From this point onwards, significant parts of the historic buildings were under temporary protection . On April 15, 2010, the distillery was finally included in the list of monuments of the city of Krefeld as an architectural monument.
Guided tours of the distillery can be booked by appointment.
various
The company location served as a backdrop for scenes in the films The Miracle of Bern , The Invention of Currywurst and Maria, He Doesn't Like It! .
Web links
- Company website Dujardin Imperial
- Dujardin distillery
- Dujardin advertising film from 1959 in the German Digital Library
Individual evidence
- ^ History of the Dujardin distillery
- ^ Obituary notice Hanno Wilhelm Melcher , FAZ, September 10, 2016
- ↑ WDR Mediathek: Aufbruch in Uerdingen ( Memento from August 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Dujardin: the distillery becomes a museum. In: Westdeutsche Zeitung , November 27, 2008
- ↑ A Uerdinger sank the Titanic. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. At: RP-Online , January 12, 2008
- ↑ The Savior from Hollywood. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. At: RP-Online , February 2, 2009
- ^ Monument protection for Dujardin and theater. In: Westdeutsche Zeitung , March 9, 2010
- ↑ District council decides on monument protection
