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.
So lets 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 reknowned 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.
The Vineyard:
The most favourable conditions for viticulture in Germany are the south and southwest-facing slopes of protected valleys, e. g. along the Rhine and its tributaries as well as the valleys of the Elbe, Saale and Main rivers. The exposure to sunlight is more intense on slopes than on flat sites and slopes with a southern exposure also profit from longer periods of sunshine.
All Bürgerspital sites are Einzellagen (individual vineyard sites) and located in the heart of the specified wine-growing region Franken (Franconia).
Würzburger Stein
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.
Bürgerspital wines have been awarded numerous prestigious national and international prizes and have won wine-tasting competitions held by celebrated sommeliers and wine journalists. This wine-growing estate is a founding member of the VDP (Association of German Top-Quality Wine-Growing Estates). The VDP is the elite of Germany´s wine producers. A distinguishing feature all VDP wines show is the eagle on the neck of the bottle.
But what has this to do with Ireland I hear you ask, well, St Killian, who is the Patron Saint of Wurzburg, hailed orginally from Ireland. Burgerspital sits in the heart of Wurzburg, 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.
