There’s a red wine revolution in Germany today and August Kesseler is one of it’s fathers.
It’s due to our owners long history in the UK & US wine markets that we have access to the highly acclaimed wines of August Kesseler.
Situated in Assmannshaus, a village on the steep banks of the world-famous Rhein. August inherited the family business from his parents at just 19 years old and immediately set about a life long mission to produce the best possible wines from this unique terroir.
This area of the Rhein was one of only a handful to be producing red wine, in addition to the traditional Rieslings Germany is famed for. The grape that had originally been planted by medieval monks and was thriving in the village was “Spätburgunder” or Pinot Noir as it is known internationally.
August’s first vintage was 1977 and it was a terrible year. 1978 was better, but by accident malolactic fermentation set-in (something that at the time was frowned upon) but he persevered, gaining the support of a few of the then “wine critiques” of the area. From there August set about producing Spätburgunder each year with a little less sugar, until the dry style of his current production was reached.
Seen as a pioneer of Spätburgunder in Germany, August was also one of the first producers to use oak in his winemaking… another step towards producing similar styles of Pinot Noir to that of Burgundy.
Today August also producers award winning Rieslings to compliment his range of spectacular Pinot Noir’s. All are made in tiny amounts, and are sold only through carefully chosen distributors. We are truly homoured to be part of that story, and to be brining about the African debut of these wines.
