A vision lives on

In addition to the external operations, I also took over the cellar work from the start, which Wilfried Jacobus saw more as a duty. I enjoyed that. After I had been here for two years, he said that he could well imagine handing over the winery to my wife and me. For me, this was a far better option than setting up my own business from scratch, constantly running at half throttle and only having second-hand machinery available due to the high costs. It was a real win-win situation for everyone involved. Wilfried Jacobus continues to live on the estate with his family and was able to continue to help organise the business during the transition phase.

Unfortunately, we do not own the entire Steyerberg. The site covers around 60 hectares, we own 40 of them, 16 planted with vines. That is already a large part of the area. But there are still smaller areas that lie fallow or are now wooded. Hardly anyone actually knows who owns them. In some cases, it is very difficult to identify the owners. However, we have been able to acquire a few more plots in recent years. Because we now really have the majority of the site and there are no longer any larger plots in one piece, we are probably the only buyers for the remainder. I certainly hope that we will be able to acquire the plots that are interesting for viticulture in the next 20 years.

In fact, these are mostly areas that have not seen a vine for 40 years. We only have two conventionally working neighbours who still cultivate vines, especially here in the flat areas on the heights. In the steep part, on the south side of the Steyerberg, we have all our vineyards in one piece without any conventionally working neighbours. That is very good. I hope that at some point we will be able to complete the rounding off. 40 hectares of vineyards in one piece would be a real house number. However, we also want to create ecological retreat areas so that certain areas remain uncultivated.

For me, it is very important not only to own vineyards, produce wine and sell it at a profit, but also to really emphasise the terroir of the Steyerberg. In my opinion, this is only possible with a coherent area and a holistic view of the landscape, which, in addition to the purely viticultural aspect, also places more emphasis on the care of the cultural landscape and does not end at the vineyard boundaries.

What the Jacobus family has created here is truly remarkable: an agricultural business of this size run by just two people, without an investor pumping money into it in the background. The winery used to be located in the neighboring village. At some point, Wilfried and Marlene Jacobus made the decision to concentrate on the Steyerberg. They then sold their vineyards in the other villages and swapped flat vineyards, even those with very good soils, for steep vineyards in the Steyerberg. Nobody in the village understood this. In 1999, they moved to Steyerberg and laid the foundations for what I can build on today.

That really is a sticking point. Fortunately, we do not have any terraces and the senior still helps out a little. In the past, when he had to do everything on his own, things inevitably got left undone from time to time, which would be unthinkable in a conventional winery in Rhinehessen, where the flat vineyards always have to look immaculate.

In the meantime, we have made significant technical improvements. Over the past ten years, many machines have been developed that can also be used on steep slopes. That means enormous progress. Today, I only need three days to do the work that used to take me 14 days formerly.

The advantage for us is that we do not have to factor in travelling times. My furthest vineyard is only 300 metres away from the house. If my mulcher breaks down in the last row, I drive home, fix it and am back in three minutes. That is quite different from having to drive here from a neighbouring village to mow my vineyard and then it breaks down in the last row. I would have to drive half an hour and would need another half an hour to get back to the vineyard.

Yes, exactly. Just by rounding off our 16 hectares of vineyards, we need surprisingly few working hours and achieve a high level of efficiency.

We only use our own names for the vineyards now. We had a few vineyards registered, but as we now produce almost exclusively Landweine, we had to part with them for legal reasons. Our vineyard names are more or less fantasy terms that originate from the region.

We only differentiate between vineyards if they are significantly different from other vineyards. If they are so special that individual vinification and separate bottling make sense.

Of course, all Steyerberg wines are first and foremost typical of the Steyerberg, namely typical of the green slate soil, which produces a high minerality and a certain saltiness in the wines. Nevertheless, it is astonishing to see the differences between the Riesling Langegohn and the Riesling Alte Reben, for example. The Langegohn is now a young field, previously the Alte Reben came from there. The Langegohn is very steep, the Steyerberg turns to the west and the slate lies there without a soil layer. This results in a Riesling which is very different to one from the eastern part of the site.

Opposite the Steyerberg is a forest, which would lead to a certain amount of moisture in the valley if the slope were not open to the west. Windesheim lies in front of the Steyerberg in a relatively round valley where several streams flow together. This is where the air is drawn from the mountain. So strong thermals are created, which are very good for drying the grapes and also for the night temperatures in autumn. We have extremely low fungal pressure, perfect for organic viticulture. Compared to Bingen, which is only ten kilometres away, the vegetation is always a good two weeks behind due to our location at an altitude of 250 metres.

Due to the aforementioned thermals, we have rapidly falling temperatures on autumn nights. It therefore makes a huge difference to the wines whether the Riesling is grown in the western part of the Steyerberg or in the south-eastern part, which is more sheltered from the wind. Because we have 16 hectares in one piece, the differences within the Steyerberg are clearly noticeable. It would be very surprising if there were no differences within a site that runs from east to south to west.

I do not know if it is exactly the same green slate. An old geological map shows it as such for the Steyerberg. There is also said to be some in Niederhausen. However, I have a customer, a geologist, who doubts that there is any green slate at all at the Nahe, because it can only form under extremely high pressure and at a very high temperature, even for slate. It is a very hard slate, as we know it from Moselle slate or black slate. Although it also has layers, it is more warped and not as straight. It weathers very quickly as soon as it comes into contact with air or something else.

This is currently a hot topic. We have already hacked out more Piwis than others have ever planted. In the case of Regent, which is no longer really a Piwi variety, we were one of the first to plant it on a large scale. Today I still have just under two hectares, but I will gradually reduce it. Overall, we have invested a lot of money and learnt a lot. We have 34 ares of Cabernet Blanc. That is not a huge amount, but it is enough.

Personally, I have a few problems with the Piwis. For me, selected yeast is already an additive. Apart from sulphites, I do not use anything in the cellar and expect my musts to ferment spontaneously and relatively stably. I know enough about chemistry to be able to judge what ferments stably and what does not. I know what I can trust and what I cannot. I can judge the acidity, pH value and biochemical stability of a must quite well. If I get wonderful Cabernet Blanc grapes into the cellar and have a fermentation stop at 60 grams of residual sugar three years in a row, then I ask myself whether a lot of research is still needed with the Piwis to show me how I can achieve a stable fermentation without a thousand little aids and selected yeast in the cellar. In the meantime, I am doing a mash fermentation with the Cabernet Blanc. It ferments relatively quickly this way, but it develops a rather intense paprika-pepper-chilli flavour. A great accompaniment to food, almost the best thing to go with tapas or grilled vegetables. But it is no longer easy-drinking because this flavour is extremely dominant. I think to myself: I would rather have a Riesling I can work with and that develops over hours and days. That is excitement! That is terroir and origin! The Riesling offers significantly more facets than any Piwi I have ever tasted.

On average, I need less than one kilogramme of copper per year. Even in a difficult year like 2021, when I did not make 32 trips and still had relatively low losses due to peronospora. I only carried out a total of 12 sprayings – which is within a completely normal range – and had no losses at all in Riesling, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. But I had the losses with Regent and Cabernet Blanc.

So why I should not use soil structure (humus) and the classic grape varieties that we have, which reflect the terroir every year, to achieve greater resilience against fungi and the consequences of climate change, instead of creating another summer cuvée in which I place the Piwis and which I sell wholesale for € 5.20 retail price? Where I then have to start with minimal pruning and trellising to make the whole thing worthwhile. It really cannot be the solution or the salvation of viticulture to reduce costs even further by focussing on grape varieties that are completely uncomplicated to grow, but never come close to the quality of a Riesling or Pinot Noir.