Quality through the union of tradition and modernity

Vines have been cultivated at Weingut Robert Weil for four generations. The founder of the estate, Dr. Robert Weil, purchased the first vineyards on the Kiedricher Berg in 1867. At the time he was still a professor of German at the Sorbonne in Paris until events prior to the Franco-Prussian War (1870/71) forced him to leave. He bought the manor of the late English baronet, Sir John Sutton, in Kiedrich (a village in the Rheingau dating from 905) and settled there.

Sutton, quite a wealthy man and a patron of the arts, first came to Kiedrich in 1857 in the course of one of his art tours. He fell in love with its unique ensemble of architectural gems such as the St. Valentine’s Gothic church and also the numerous aristocratic estates dating from the medieval, Renaissance, and baroque periods as well as the Scharfenstein castle ruins of the Mainz electors and of course the vineyards and forests of the surrounding countryside.

As of 1875, in addition to his work as a journalist, Dr. Robert Weil expanded his wine estate by acquiring the finest parcels of the Kiedricher Berg. Thanks to his uncompromising, quality-oriented viticultural philosophy, the estate advanced quickly and its wines were soon distributed internationally. As such, Auslese Rieslings from the Dr. Robert Weil estate were served as the white wine counterparts to great Bordeaux wines at many European imperial and royal courts. A Gräfenberg Riesling from the 1893 vintage helped spread the estate’s renown throughout the world. The royal court of Austria purchased 800 bottles of the 1893 Auslese from the “Kiedricher Berg” for sixteen gold marks per bottle–an astonishing price even in those days when Rheingau Rieslings were already the most expensive growths in the world of wine. Not only the nobility drank Weil Rieslings at the turn of the century but also the burgeoning middle classes. Ausleses from the Kiedricher Berg were on the wine list of the Hotel Adlon in Berlin as well as those of other distinguished hotels throughout Europe. In 1928, on its maiden voyage to New York, the wine list of the airship “LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin” featured a 1920 Kiedricher Gräfenberg Trockenbeerenauslese Best Cask No. 20 from the Weil estate.

Once upon a time, the vision and entrepreneurial courage of Dr. Robert Weil proved essential to the survival of the estate. After all, his privately owned winery had to stay afloat in a sea of notable Rheingau estates with deep-rooted ties to the church or aristocracy. His great-grandson Wilhelm Weil has carried that bold approach into modern times.

MODERN...