The wine-growing landscape in Germany is changing: there are fewer, but larger companies. “We have been observing a concentration process in German viticulture for many years,” reports Ernst Büscher from the German Wine Institute. Many winegrowers have no successor, give up and sell to successful companies. However, the total area under vines in Germany remains constant. And a number of young winegrowers have different priorities than their parents and grandparents.
Almost every fifth company (19 percent) had more than ten hectares of vineyards in 2020, as Büscher says. These winegrowers cultivated 62 percent of the entire German area under vines. Ten years earlier, only half of the total area under vines belonged to holdings of more than ten hectares. There are no more recent figures.
The classic winegrower now has to do everything, including marketing, says Professor Jon Hanf from Geisenheim University. According to his assessment, a global structural oversupply of wine has significantly increased the intensity of competition. In addition to the division of labour, wages for employees would be higher than for family members. This results in the pressure of having to produce in large units in order to sell more quantities and to be able to work on a division of labour. The result is the concentration of companies.
What defines the new generation of winemakers?
“Where the young generation enters the winery, they often invest in new wine shops or technologies and focus on quality,” reports Büscher. “Larger areas are then required for this, because the yields generally decrease with increasing quality.”
Like Thomas (40) and Martin (36) Philipps from the Philipps-Mühle winery on the Middle Rhine. The father’s milling trade no longer had a future in the family business. The brothers expanded their parents’ winegrowing hobby business from 0.3 hectares to a full-time business with around six hectares and opened a vinotheque with a wine café near the Loreley.
Shanna Reis is the fourth generation to run the Reis @ Luff winery in Aspisheim, Rhine-Hesse – with the support of her brother-in-law, parents and grandparents. The 31-year-old, who is also a hunter, book author and doctoral student, makes about a third of the 30 wines herself, also has a young target group in mind and serves them in her sister’s hotel and café – five kilometers away in Gensingen.
24-year-old Carlo Schmitt von der Mosel, who is the third generation to run the family business after training and studying, also has high quality standards. He was eleven years old when his father had a fatal accident on a steep slope. The winery then had to be drastically reduced to 1.5 hectares. In the meantime, it has almost doubled in size and is set to continue to grow.
What is important to the new generation when it comes to winegrowing?
“We have the best-trained generation of winegrowers ever,” says Jürgen Oberhofer from the Institute for Viticulture and Oenology at DLR Rheinpfalz. “It used to be a manual job, and today you almost need a second degree to become an office manager,” he says, describing the challenges. But: “Wine has a very good image.” And career changers are also interested in taking over a business. But they often lack the money. “Because a lot of capital is tied up in the area.”
Organic, sustainability and new fungus-resistant grape varieties (Piwis) also play a decisive role for the young winegrowers. “Often the changeover to organic viticulture in the companies takes place with the generational change,” states Büscher. “As the Fridays for Future generation grows older and develops a taste for wine, they will certainly prefer wines made from untreated grapes from sustainable grape varieties.”
The brothers from the Philipps-Mühle started the three-year conversion to organic wine in 2021 and are now also planting Piwis. Shanna Reis from Rheinhessen says: “Viticulture is a monoculture. We also plant forests.” For her, sustainability is “a matter close to her heart”, which can be implemented with “aim and a sense of proportion” for economic reasons and taking into account the different ideas of the generations.
What does the cooperation look like?
“There is hardly any pressure from the family to take over the winery anymore,” reports the chairwoman of Wein.Im.Puls in Württemberg, Mara Walz. More than 60 companies are united in the association of young winegrowers from the region. Among other things, they bottle a white and a red cuvée together every year – i.e. a wine made from different grape varieties. “The new generation of winegrowers is open. We don’t see our neighbors as competitors, but as colleagues,” says the 31-year-old. Many friendships and even marriages were formed.
Close exchange, experience abroad and events: “With their fresh ideas and uncomplicated wine presentation, the young winegrowers have made a major contribution to the fact that wine is generally viewed as a trendy product in this country,” says Büscher. “That’s not always the case in other European wine-producing countries.” Above all, the young generation of winemakers is characterized by “massive professionalization,” says Professor Hanf. Many students who came from small wineries didn’t want to go back there at all, but wanted to work somewhere else in the industry.
