Hessian State Winery Eberbach Monastery

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Hessische Staatsweingüter GmbH Kloster Eberbach
legal form GmbH
founding 2003
Seat Eltville am Rhein , Germany
management
  • Dieter Greiner (Managing Director)
Number of employees 69 (2019)
sales EUR 12.5 million (2016)
Branch Food industry
Website www.weingut-kloster-eberbach.de

Domain on the Steinberg :
View from the bar “Schwarzen Häuschen” to the gate
Wine cellar with wine barrels

The Hessian State Winery Kloster Eberbach is a winery that extends over cultivation areas in the Rheingau and the Hessian Bergstrasse . With 235 hectares of cultivation area, it is the largest winery in Germany. It belongs to the Association of German Predicate and Quality Wineries . The owner is the State of Hesse and the headquarters are in Eltville am Rhein .

Growing area

The cultivation area of ​​around 235 hectares extends over six domains :

In the Rheingau:

On the Hessian Bergstrasse:

  • Bensheim (locations: Heppenheimer Centgericht, Heppenheimer Steinkopf, Bensheimer Streichling, Bensheimer Kalkgasse, Schönberger Herrenwingert and small slopes, a total of 32.6 ha).

Wines

In the state wineries is mainly Riesling grown, the domain Assmannshausen for their produce on steep slopes Pinot Noir known. Only smaller areas are planted with vines for Pinot Blanc , Pinot Gris and Chardonnay .

history

The origin of the state wineries is the Eberbach monastery , which was founded in 1136 by Bernhard von Clairvaux as a branch of the Cistercians . The monks sent from France soon began to grow grapes near their monastery, originally to produce mass wine. However, the wine pressed in the vineyards of the monks soon turned out to be a sought-after commodity. The Eberbacher Weinwirtschaft expanded and operated 205 branch offices from Cologne to Worms at its heyday. The cultivation area belonging to the monastery was steadily increased.

In 1803 the monastery was secularized by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , whereby the monastic, but not the winemaking tradition was lost. The property of the monastery fell to the Principality of Nassau-Usingen and then to the Duchy of Nassau, to whom the income fell, whether the duke or the state, was controversial until the end. Finally, when he fled from the Prussians in 1866, the Duke had the contents of the cellars with him, the equivalent of around 150,000 liters of Rheingau wine.

The domain estates then became the property of Prussia . The domain administration turned the Royal Prussian State Domain Wiesbaden Kloster Eberbach into a model business and bought additional locations, especially in the domain Rauenthal. The rise began with the appointment of the Hungarian-born Andreas Czéh , who took over the management of the domain in 1880 from the viticulture and cellar inspector Theodor Victor, who was still appointed in the Nassau era , and until 1918 first as an inspector, then as the Royal Prussian Domanial viticulture director officiated. The winery and administration buildings in Eltville and Rüdesheim go back to his initiative. Around 1900 the top wines from the Eberbacher Domain achieved top international prices. At the public auction of barrel wine , 20,000 to 30,000 marks could easily be redeemed for a piece of Eberbach wine.

In 1945 the winery became the property of the State of Hesse. In 1951, sparkling wine production was started in order to exploit an overproduction of wine. This made the state of Hesse the only sparkling wine-producing state in the world alongside the Soviet Union. In 1966, the Transylvanian Saxon Hans Ambrosi accepted the appointment as viticulture director of the Hessian state wineries, which he headed until 1990. With a successful marketing concept, he made considerable profits for the state wineries. He combined wine culture with artistic activities and opened the Eberbach Monastery on a large scale for appropriate events. He was very committed to the now largely completed renovation of the monastery. The Rheingau Music Festival found an important venue here thanks to its support, especially in the basilica, which offers special acoustics. As a result of his impetus, the monastery has developed into a wine, music and cultural center of European standing, which has also become a stage for state visits and international conferences.

In 1998 the Eberbach Monastery monument was spun off from the state wineries and has since been managed by the Eberbach Monastery Foundation under public law.

restructuring

The Steinbergkeller by the architect Reinhard Moster

At the beginning of 2003, the state of Hesse converted the "Landesbetrieb Hessische Staatsweingüter" into the "Hessische Staatsweingüter GmbH Kloster Eberbach". The incumbent Prime Minister Roland Koch took over the chairmanship of the Supervisory Board, which he held until 2013. Dieter Greiner, who had been operations manager since 2000 and had prepared the far-reaching restructuring of the company, also became managing director. In contrast to the actual wine-growing business, the vineyards and business buildings were not part of the GmbH, but remained in direct ownership of the state. Since then, the company has had to pay rent for the use of this and other cultivation areas.

In 2006, the EU Commission initiated an official investigation on suspicion of illegal state aid . The subject matter was subsidies granted from the state budget and the co-financing of the new building of the central winery in the form of a loan of 7.5 million euros. In 2008 the decision was made that the company had to reimburse the state for around EUR 542,000 plus interest for payments received without a legal basis up to the end of 2002. On the other hand, the aid granted in connection with the restructuring from 2003 onwards was not contested.

The so-called Steinbergkeller - a largely underground wine cellar on the road between Hattenheim and Eberbach Monastery - was completed in 2008 as the central winery of the state wineries. The operations center was relocated from the core town of Eltville to the Steinberg . The planning and construction of the modern production facility was accompanied by considerable protests from the surrounding winegrowers and local residents. The operating building of the Bensheim domain in the Bensheimer Grieselstrasse was sold and the grapes are now processed in the powerful Steinberg winery.

literature

  • Hildemarie Grünewald (Red.): Staatsweingüter Kloster Eberbach contemporary witnesses and documents from 1945 to 2000 . Rheingau-Echo-Verlag, Geisenheim 2002, ISBN 3-9808438-1-5 .

Web links

Commons : Hessische Staatsweingüter Kloster Eberbach  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Annual financial statements as of June 24, 2019
  2. EU says yes to state wineries , press release of the Ministry of Finance on the website of the State of Hesse from August 25, 2017, accessed on October 11, 2017
  3. With a Hungary to the top of the world  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Wiesbadener Tagblatt from November 23, 2010; Eberbach Monastery: As a thank you, Domain Manager Andreas Czéh received a handsome salary and German citizenship@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wiesbadener-tagblatt.de  
  4. ^ Society for the History of Wine: Czeh, Andreas (1843–1925)
  5. For reasons of prestige . In: Der Spiegel 17/1951 from April 25, 1951
  6. Dr. Hans Ambrosi , Siebenbürgische Zeitung of March 25, 2005; Dr. Hans Ambrosi, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, can look back on an extraordinary life as a wine expert, author, promoter of art and culture and winner of the Transylvanian-Saxon Culture Prize
  7. Staatsdomänen & Staatsweingüter, website of the Hessian Ministry of the Environment, accessed on October 11, 2017
  8. Dieter Greiner: Der Winzer vom Koch, in: Die Zeit from October 21, 2010, accessed on October 11, 2017
  9. Eberbach Monastery: Winery in a spirit of optimism, ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fnp.de archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Frankfurter Neue Presse from August 26, 2017, accessed on October 11, 2017
  10. EU penalty for state wineries? in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 20, 2006, accessed on October 11, 2017
  11. Hessian state wineries have to repay state aid received illegally before 2002 in the amount of 541 859 EUR plus interest , press release on the website of the EU Commission of May 20, 2008, accessed on October 11, 2017
  12. Duty to earn money, in: Die Welt, August 3, 2008, accessed on October 11, 2017
  13. Reiner Trabold: How the "flagship" state winery in Bensheim became a sparkling wine manufacturer in: Darmstädter Echo from May 8, 2017