German – Irish Wines?
With St. Patrick’s Day, our national holiday just around the corner, it got us thinking again about our ‘Irish Wines’. We have a number of wines which can someway or another be traced back to Ireland. So between now and the 17th March, we’ll be publishing a blog on each of our featured wines which we are offering 30% off from now until Patrick’s Day.
So let’s get started with Germany:
Burgerspital is located in a fantastically beautiful courtyard right in the middle of Würzburg, is one of the largest wine-growing estates in Germany and one of the most important with a wine-growing area of 110 hectares.
The slopes and steep sites of the hills along the River Main offer ideal conditions for growing wine. The sun smiles upon the vineyards quite early in the year, the Shelly limestone soil (Muschelkalk) storing the warmth. The location, the soil, the climate, the proximity to the river, the selection of the types of vine and the art of the Bürgerspital wine-growers enable exceptional wines to be grown here.
Burgerspital is renowned for using the “Bocksbeutel” - a flattened, round bottle-shaped like a leather pouch for bottling the wine – and yes it is a full-sized bottle holding 750ml.
In 1726 the Council of the City of Würzburg decided that the “Bocksbeutel” be the mark of quality compared with poorly produced wines. To this day, the first sealed specimens of the Bocksbeutel are stored in Bürgerspital’s cellars. Bürgerspital has been totally committed to the Bocksbeutel’s claim to quality right up to the present day
They only cultivate classical varietals (Riesling, Silvaner, Weißer Burgunder, Gewürztraminer, Rieslaner, Scheurebe) on some 30 hectares in the world-renowned location Würzburger Stein. Its terroir being a rare combination of the micro-climate, soil and the slope inclination, direction and proximity to the river – offers wines of the very highest quality.
But what has this to do with Ireland I hear you ask, well, St Killian, who is the Patron Saint of Wurzburg, hailed originally from Co. Cavan. Burgerspital Cellars sit in the heart of Wurzburg town, in the shadow of St. Killian.
Saint Killian’s feast day is July 8 and he is usually portrayed, as in his statue at Würzburg, bearing a bishop’s crozier and wielding a sword. The Kiliani-Volksfest (two weeks in July) is the main civil and religious festival in the region around Würzburg.
