20213041_WGDE2021_ENGL

RHEINHESSEN | A PORTRAIT OF THE REGION
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challenges best: “we no longer have to
discuss the classification pyramid; in
times of climate change, burning forests
and vineyards we have to face the real
topics.”
Kai Schätzel is not blinded by
Rheinhessen’s successful trajectory, either.
On the contrary, he is convinced that
viticulture has to change fundamentally:
nobody can afford to ignore rising must
weights, dry stress, sunburn, increasing
water demand and different pH-levels in
the vineyards any longer. “Viticulture as
we know it will soon be a thing of the
past,” Schätzel says, even if many growers
“rather faff around with its effects” while
hoping that things change back again.
Schätzel prefers to turn his gaze south to
hotter wine regions. He looks into dry
farming on the Red Slope and
“climate-adapted cultivation”. His
vineyards are farmed according to an
“anti-stress-system” that takes the vines
into a “naturally protective state”: It is an
almost pergola-like training within a
“shaded system” – he does not want to
“force his vines into an artificial shape
and steal their leaves” which only prompts
them to grow more leaves and use more
For VDP-member Kai Schätzel, the concepts
of this elite association and natural wines
are not mutually exclusive
water. Schätzel is aware of the effects his
farming methods have on the outside
world: “Many winemakers feel attacked.”
In the south of the region, in the
Wonnegau, Bianka and Daniel Schmitt of
bio-estate Weingut Schmitt in
Flörsheim-Dalsheim work according to
biodynamic principles. Hungarian-born
Bianka studied oenology in Budapest and
met Daniel in Rheinhessen in 2012. From
Photos: Shutterstock, Weingut Riffel/Nils Weiler sixdesign 2018, provided
Daniel and Bianka Schmitt run their Demeter-certified
estate according to the motto “nothing but the grape”
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