Würzburger Stein

Würzburger Stein is a vineyard in the German wine region of Franconia that has been producing a style of wine, known as Steinwein since at least the 8th century. Located on a hill overlooking the Main river outside the city of Würzburg, the vineyard is responsible for what may have been the oldest wine ever tasted. In addition to being one of Germany's oldest winemaking sites, at 85 hectares (210 acres), the vineyard is also one of Germany's largest individual plots.

Today the vineyard is one of the warmest sites in the Franconia wine region and is planted primarily to Riesling and Silvaner.

The history of viticulture at Würzburger Stein dates back to at least 779 making it one of Germany's oldest vineyard sites. It is possible that viticulture was taking place earlier here as the Irish missionary Saint Kilian in the 7th century was believed to have helped spread wine growing in the Franconia region and is today considered to be the patron saint of wine growers in the area. Records from 1665 indicate that a Cistercian abbot planted the first Silvaner vines at the site, making it one of the oldest such planting of the grape variety in Germany.

While some production still took place, viticulture on Würzburger Stein declined—as it did in most of Franconia—from the 16th to 19th century as a combination of frequent wars, vineyard pests (such as the phylloxera epidemic) and growing public taste for tea and coffee took its toll on the wine market.

Throughout history, the vineyard and the Steinwein produced here have been noted in various texts and literary work. The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in particular, described the wine as one of his favorites and wrote many lines praising its quality. In the 1840s the vineyard was visited by French wine writer André Jullien who described the sweet Steinwein from Würzburger Stein as being very potent and liable to cause violent headaches if too much was consumed. Jullien went on to describe that the strength and sweetness of the wines from Würzburger weren't necessarily the result of late harvest picking but rather from the post-harvest practice of drying the grapes out on mats prior to fermentation—making them essentially vins de paille or straw wines.

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Wikipedia