Outstanding Vinothek in Württemberg
Don't worry! No one has to climb four hundred and one “Stäffele” - people outside Lembergerland would say "steps" - to get their wine at the top. That's what athletes do who meet once a year for a cross-country run. Or hikers who set out at the bottom of the new vinothek in Rosswag near Vaihingen to spend the day in the vineyards above the Enz river. 401 steps from the river to the highest vine, that corresponds to a good 23 storeys. These numbers alone already offer a first impression of the region where the Lemberger grapes ripen: These are high, steep terraces that lean towards the sun, the steepest in the region.
The work on the slope is arduous, no machines come to the rescue. But the reward is priceless. It is also the image of the steps that Christian Kaiser likes to quote. Perhaps this is due to the influence of the poet Hermann Hesse, who was born not too far from here, in Calw. "The spirit of the world does not want to bind and narrow us," he writes in his famous poem about the "steps", "it wants to lift us step by step, to expand us." He continues: "Only those who are ready for departure and new journeys can free themselves from the paralysis of habituation.”
Kaiser, managing director of the Lembergerland winery, also knew the state of paralysing habituation in which the company had been until ten or twelve years ago, when it began step by step to take the path to a new era. Before that, it had been enough to keep a small wood-panelled room in the house of a former communal warehouse ready as a tasting room. But the customers became younger, more curious, also more knowledgeable; they no longer came to pack their car boots full of 120 bottles because they had always done it that way - they wanted to encounter wine as an experience, fresh and surprising.
The wines themselves had followed a similar trend, were more attentive to the character of the region and the terroir, had become finer and more communicative. A new cellar master had convinced the 270 active winegrowers of the cooperative to do a stricter selection when harvesting, to reduce the yields and had then, in the cellar, given their grapes due respect. Now, the last step was to find the right space to make this change visible.
Inspired by the words of Hermann Hesse, the vinothek can be seen as a symbol of this departure and journey. The glass facade takes up an entire gable front, and even the offices on the upper floor attest to transparency and lightness. Thomas Bangert and Tom Krawczyk, the architects from Vaihingen-Rosswag, have created a space for lovers of wine, open and straightforward in form, which expresses the joy of wine in the materials used: the old oak wood, from which the barrique barrels are made, and in the steel that holds them together. Shell limestone covers the ground in the courtyard. This is the stone on which the vines thrive. But for that you would have to climb a few steps up the mountain.
Opening Time
Monday - Friday: 9:00 am – 6:00 pm
Saturday: 9:00 am – 2:00 pm
Sunday: 12:00 – 5:00 pm
