Rotspon
Rotspon ( ) (medium low German spon = wooden vessel) is an old German word for red bulk wine and in the narrower sense a French red wine, which is transported in the barrel and in a north German Hanse city for bottles maturity reached.
Name Rotspon
Low German Spon means high German span, wood. One interpretation is that the inside of the wooden barrels turned red from long storage. Another interpretation is that the wine was drunk from wooden jugs and the inside turned red.
Rotspon in the Hanseatic cities
Lübeck
The term Lübeck Rotspon stands for Bordeaux wines imported from France in barrels and stored in Lübeck until they are bottled and then bottled . Salt was shipped as a preservative for fish from the 16th century between Lübeck and the Biscay coast . Accompanying the cargo were barrels with Bordeaux wine. The idea of refining this red wine transported by sea by expanding and storing it in Lübeck goes back to the Lübeck councilor and businessman Thomas Fredenhagen .
Traditional Rotspon producers in Lübeck and known for this wine are above all the company " Carl Tesdorpf " in the historic Mengstrasse and the "Weinhandel HF von Melle GmbH" in the Beckergrube.
Hamburg
In Hamburg the wine trading houses “Heinr. von Have ”in Hamburg-Bergedorf and the“ Weinkontor GH Wehber & Co. ”in Hamburg-Duvenstedt producers of Rotspon with a certain tradition. Since 2008 the company "Johannes Kemnitz Weinimport" has been maturing and bottling Rotspon in its winery in Hamburg-Billbrook . "Rotspon from Hamburg" is served at all official events of the Hamburg citizenship and the Senate in the Hamburg City Hall . On the bottles of these bottlings there is a historical representation of the great Hamburg state coat of arms , which only the citizenship, the Senate and the Hamburg Constitutional Court use. However, they are not to be confused with the “Senate wine”, the “Hamburg Stintfang Cuvée”, which is made from grapes on the Stintfang . “Rotspon from Hamburg” is often given as a gift from Hamburg and is also available in the Hamburg state representation in Berlin .
Other Hanseatic cities
The Rotspon also has a tradition in other present or earlier Hanseatic cities such as Bremen , Rostock and Münster .
In the Hanseatic city of Antwerp there is a wine shop that sells Rotspon in different varieties, separated by Bordelaiser appellations ; Rotspon from Margaux , from Saint-Julien and from Pauillac .
Storage in oak barrels
Traditional expansion
The trade with the Rotspon began during the Hanseatic League in the 13th century, but only gained importance in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Bordeaux winemakers are at occasional visits to the Hanseatic cities of their own wine no longer have recognized, much as he had through the transport and storage in oak barrels improved Oak: In earlier times, the winemakers were often poor and their barrels not of good quality. The combination of good barrels from the wealthy traders, the long journey in the barrel and then the aging in Hanseatic cellars, sometimes from different batches of wine from different wineries and expertly blended with one another , made the quality of the Bordeaux wines clear in many cases compared to the wines that remained in Bordeaux improve. The famous landlord Louis-Gaspard Estournel also used this knowledge to optimize his wine, the Cos d'Estournel , by traveling in good barrels on a ship in the 19th century .
Unprotected term
Not everything that is marketed today under the name Rotspon is Rotspon in the old sense as wine bought in a barrel and transported north in a barrel, since the term is not protected and the properties are not specified. Some dealers sell wines under this name that are just a special bottling of a Bordeaux wine and then go on sale with their own label and packaging.
Rotspon in literature
A well-known supporter of the Rotspons was the Low German poet Fritz Reuter . Thomas Mann mentions the Rotspon in his novel Buddenbrooks and Heinrich Mann in his novellas The Stolen Document and The Unknown as well as in his comedy The Garter . Wolfgang Koeppen names the Rotspon (heated with saffron, cloves and cinnamon) in his book Youth as an old house recipe. Felix Graf von Luckner mentions Rotspon in his story Seeteufel . Also in Alfred Andersch's Zanzibar or the last reason Rotspon is mentioned in connection with Pastor Helander.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Entry in Duden, accessed on August 2, 2013
- ↑ Ulrich Ammon, Hans Bickel, Jakob Ebner: Variant Dictionary of German: The standard language in Austria, Switzerland and Germany as well as in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, East Belgium and South Tyrol . Gruyter Verlag (2004), p. 642 ISBN 3110165740
- ↑ Definition of the red sponsorship at Heinr. von Have, Hamburg on origin / transport / maturation
- ^ Definition of Spon in Rotspon from Hamburg
- ↑ The Hamburger Rotspon is organic, vegan and comes from Bergedorf. In: Hamburger Abendblatt, November 1, 2013, p. 12.
- ↑ A great story lives: "Lübecker Rotspon." In: Lübecker Nachrichten of November 27, 2014, p. IV.
- ↑ Hanseatic City of Lübeck: Specialties from Lübeck, accessed on August 2, 2013
- ↑ "The Hamburger Rotspon is organic, vegan and comes from Bergedorf" Article in the Hamburger Abendblatt from November 1, 2013, accessed on January 20, 2016.
- ↑ Stintfang # Weinberg_auf_dem_Stintfang
- ↑ "Members of Parliament visited Parliament and the State Representation. 70 Hamburgers in the Bundestag. ” Article in the Hamburger Abendblatt from February 17, 2001, accessed on January 20, 2016.