An entourage from Toronto Wine Bar travelled to the picturesque city of Wurzburg in the Franconia region of the German state of Bavaria in 2017 to meet with one of our long-standing German wine suppliers, Weingut Am Stein. My first visit to Wurzburg was many years ago for Easter, and I had pleasant memories of the town and its wines, so I decided to return. While living in Piedmont, Italy, I found that the crisp mineral white wines from Wurzburg were a welcome change of pace from the robust tannic reds that were more commonly available in Italy. Of course, both are wonderful, but the sophisticated aromas of the German wines I sampled last spring satisfied my thirst for warmer weather.
The wines of Weingut am Stein might be precisely what you need if you haven’t had a decent German wine in a while or if you avoid buying them because you don’t know how to understand the labels.
Family Tradition at the Weingut am Stein
Ludwig Knoll, the current owner and winemaker, runs the family business Weingut am Stein. His great-grandfather opened a cooperage in Wurzburg in the 1890s, supplying vineyards in the area with barrels. The Wurzburger Stein winery was founded in 1980 by Ludwig’s father, and since 1990, Ludwig and his wife Sandra have run the winery and business together. Vintners and winemakers adhere to organic and biodynamic practices. Ludwig and Sandra hope to teach their children environmental principles, such as stewardship of the land and an appreciation for its interdependence with all other forms of life.
After meeting Ludwig and Sandra and eating a dinner they had prepared with great care in their house, which overlooks a gently sloping vineyard, it became clear to me that wine and food link us to our pasts, our present locations, and ultimately to one other. So we sat down to a private dinner as a bunch of strangers, pulled together by our shared love of wine.