Wurzburg stone

The Würzburger Stein is a German wine-growing region .

geography

Map of the historical and current wine-growing locations around Würzburg

The steep slope extends shell- shaped on the southern slope north of the city of Würzburg on the shell limestone soil typical of the Maindreieck , lies at an altitude of 210 to 270 meters above sea level. NN, covers 85 hectares and has a slope between 30 and 65 percent. The Würzburger Stein is the largest single layer in Germany.

The high-speed railway line Hanover – Würzburg crosses the stone in the Steinberg tunnel .

The stone and wine path

Today the Stein-Wein -pfad leads through the stone, a four-kilometer panoramic circular route that begins at the end of the Rotkreuzsteige at the Weingut am Stein. It leads in a moderate incline up to the Steinburg, stretches west from there to the Pfaffenberg vineyard and then runs above the Stein vineyard to the Bismarck Tower and from there very steeply down to the Stein winery. The grape varieties, the soil, the concave mirror effect of the vineyards, the requirements for mass wine and the thoughts of famous people about the Stein vineyard are documented on display boards . The view of the Main, the Marienberg Fortress opposite and the Käppele pilgrimage chapel and the city are remarkable. The vineyards of the large wineries are clearly marked.

history

The Ebrach abbot Alberich Degen first planted the Silvaner vine in this vineyard in 1665 , which had been brought to Franconia by the Castell family in 1659 . In 1726, the good stone wine from the Bürgerspital was bottled for the first time in the Bocksbeutel, which has been typical of Franconia since then . A 1540 stone wine , which owes its quality as a “millennium wine” to the drought in Central Europe in 1540 , is stored in the wine cellar of the Bürgerspital . The English wine critic Hugh Johnson tasted this white wine in 1961 and stated that it was “still alive” and “even hinted at its German origins”. But then it oxidized very quickly in the glass. Hugh Johnson continues: "He gave up his ghost and turned to vinegar in our glasses".

owner

Viticulture on the Würzburger Stein

Today the Würzburger Stein belongs to approximately one third each of the three traditional Würzburg wineries Bürgerspital , Juliusspital and Staatlicher Hofkeller . Smaller plots are owned by Weingut am Stein Ludwig Knoll and Weingut Reiss. The middle section, the so-called stone harp, is exclusively owned by the Citizens Hospital.

Wine

According to Johnson's wine guide , the wines from the Würzburger Stein are characterized by a distinctive, smoky minerality that comes from the limestone soils. They resembled the white Burgundy wines from Chablis . Great elegance and a subtle, lemony fruit with hints of exotic fruits were also among the best stone wines.

Literary mention

The rare constellation of slope inclination, slope direction, terrain shape and proximity to the river offers optimal conditions, as this popular quatrain shows:

To Klingenberg am Main ,

to Bacharach am Rhein,

to Würzburg on the stone,

the best wine grows there .

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote in a letter to his wife Christiane about the Würzburger Stein: "I don't want any other wine to taste and I am annoyed when I run out of my favorite drink."

By Heinrich von Kleist , Ricarda Huch and Kurt Tucholsky is also known that they appreciated the meeting of Riverside, Out and wine. The latter writes in his short story Das Wirtshaus im Spessart vom Steinwein: "Something of purity, of clear power, of collected sun and sun-soaked earth was not there yet".

literature

Schmitt Alfred: Würzburg and the wine . In: Klaus M. Höynck, Alexander von Papp (Ed.): Würzburg. 1300 years of city life between education and the bourgeoisie, church and culture. Echter, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-429-02532-X , pp. 158-163.
Herbert Kriener: The vineyard - the Würzburger Steinberg . In: Andrea Czygan, Michael Deppisch: 100 reasons to love Mainfranken . Main-Post, Würzburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-925232-24-4 , p. 188.

Web links

Commons : Würzburger Stein - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ 1540er Steinwein in the Bürgerspital Weingut Würzburg. Bürgerspital Würzburg, accessed on August 12, 2018 .
↑ Hugh Johnson, Stephen Brook: The Great Johnson. The encyclopedia of the world's wines, vineyards and winemakers . Gräfe and Unzer Verlag GmbH, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-8338-1621-5 , pp. 274 .
↑ Tucholsky - Prose: Das Wirtshaus im Spessart. Retrieved May 23, 2020 .

[1] 1540er Steinwein in the Bürgerspital Weingut Würzburg. Bürgerspital Würzburg, accessed on August 12, 2018 .

[2] Hugh Johnson, Stephen Brook: The Great Johnson. The encyclopedia of the world's wines, vineyards and winemakers . Gräfe and Unzer Verlag GmbH, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-8338-1621-5 , pp. 274 .

[3] Tucholsky - Prose: Das Wirtshaus im Spessart. Retrieved May 23, 2020 .