German
The Griesel & Compagnie sparkling wine house was only founded in 2013 by the Streit family within the historic walls of the former Hessian State Winery in Bensheim. Niko Brandner, then only 30 years old, was hired as operations manager and cellar master. He had given up his career as a banker to study viticulture, even though he did not come from a family of winegrowers. He then worked at the Fürst winery in Bürkstadt and apprenticed with German sparkling wine guru Volker Raumland. With his very first vintage, he catapulted the newly founded sparkling wine house into the spotlight of the “German sparkling wine class” (Spiegel online, December 13, 2016). We have been following the winery since its first vintage and are thrilled with the development of Griesel sparkling wine under Niko's direction.
Grieselstraße 34
64625 Bensheim, Deutschland
Phone +49 6251 8696890
Winery Size 14 ha
No wonder it has received numerous awards, including the 2018 German Sparkling Wine Award from Meininger Verlag and the Rising Star of the Year award in the 2019 Vinum Wine Guide. Niko Brandner is now mentioned in the same breath as Volker Raumland and Mathieu Kauffmann when it comes to German sparkling wine of the highest quality.
At Griesel, the focus is entirely on sparkling wine production. This means that even in the vineyard, the work is geared towards sparkling wine production and early harvesting in order to obtain light, crisp base wines. All grapes are hand-picked, gently pressed, spontaneously fermented, and clarified naturally. Most of the aging takes place in small wooden barrels and partly in stainless steel tanks. The base wines all undergo malolactic fermentation to achieve greater complexity and are aged completely without sulfur. Traditional bottle fermentation then takes place in the cool Griesel cellar. The traditional sparkling wines remain on the lees for 16 months, Prestige for at least 24 months, and Grande Cuvée for over 40 months. Griesel now also produces various single-vineyard sparkling wines. The sparkling wines from Höllberg and Fürstenlager are characterized by the barren granite soils of the Hessian Bergstraße and are undoubtedly among the most complex sparkling wines in Germany. The dosage is kept as low as possible, because Niko Brandner wants to produce austere and straightforward sparkling wines, but thanks to malolactic fermentation and aging in wood, even the Extra Brut sparkling wines have a charming basic character.