The Kaiserstuhl. Germany's warm home of Pinot.

Baden and the Emperor's Throne

Baden is Germany's southwestern wine region, running from Heidelberg down to Lake Constance along the French border. Between the Vosges in France and the Black Forest in Germany, warm Mediterranean air reaches the Rhine plain through the Belfort Gap. In the middle stands the Kaiserstuhl, the remains of an ancient volcano whose name means the Emperor's Throne.

It is one of the warmest corners of Germany, and the landscape can feel almost exotic, with terraces some compare to rice paddies. Across the Rhine you can see the vineyards of Alsace, culturally different but with interesting similarities in the glass.

Volcanic rock and loess

Two soils shape the wines. Where the volcanic rock is exposed, the most exciting wines are made, and roots can reach many meters deep. Elsewhere the vines grow in loess, a fine wind-blown dust from the ice ages, which gives fruitier, more immediately appealing wines.

Joachim Heger is skeptical of the rule that poorer soil always means better wine. His answer is the German word jain, yes and no at once: poor soils can make thrilling wines, but easy, fruity everyday wines need more generous ground.

The three Burgunders

In Germany the Pinot grapes carry Burgundian names. Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) is taken unusually seriously here; Germany grows more of it than any other country, and it can reach the top GG level. Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris) has a grey-purple skin but makes white wine, fuller than most Pinot Grigio and drier than many Alsace examples. Spätburgunder, Pinot Noir, is the mother of them all.

With a warming climate, the Kaiserstuhl now has the kind of climate Burgundy had a generation ago. The film shows the punch-downs in the cellar and explains the narrow window for picking Pinot Noir: too early and it tastes green, too late and the freshness disappears.

German Pinot Noir producers once looked to Burgundy for everything, from small barrels to lower yields. Over the past decade they have started to define their own style. Joachim wants a black cherry nose, freshness and good acidity that is never green, and above all elegance rather than power. One of the hosts remembers the aromas of hawthorn blossom and Ceylon tea rising from the fermenting Pinot when she worked a harvest here.

The Heger family of Ihringen

The story starts with a country doctor. Joachim's grandfather settled in Ihringen after the First World War, and poor patients often paid him in kind, including wine he found undrinkable. So he asked for grapes instead and began making wine, later buying vineyards in the Winklerberg.

Joachim's father was the first trained winemaker in the family and turned away from sweetened wines. Joachim himself nearly became a doctor before his wife persuaded him to take on the winery with her. The family also keeps a soft spot for Silvaner, the traditional grape of Ihringen, made from an old parcel worked with a horse and fermented spontaneously in barrels.

He also experiments in the vineyard, for example by covering the soil with straw to hold moisture, which in his experience kept the vines almost free of drought stress in dry years.

A new generation

Rebecca, who studied at Geisenheim, now works in the cellar with her father, while Katharina is finishing business studies to take on sales. Rebecca wants to focus on fewer wines and above all the Pinots, which makes her father a little nervous about his beloved Silvaner. Watch the film for a warm, funny portrait of a structured daughter and an artistic father learning to make decisions together.

Joachim, for his part, is not ready to retire, and he hopes his daughters will simply ask him to keep working alongside them. Even the critics in the film agree that the Heger wines keep getting better from year to year, the sign of a family that never stops asking how to improve. It is the story of a region that has reinvented itself as a fine wine country.

Go furtherWant to taste along? Find Dr. Heger’s wines and where to buy them near you on Wine-Searcher. To explore the estates, vineyards and wines of Baden and Germany further, the wein.plus wine guide is a great resource.