At the Rhine since 1337: from knight's seat to castle domain
Viticulture at the Reinhartshausen estate has been documented since the year 1337 — and thus the winery is one of the historically longest-documented addresses in German viticulture. The location in Eltville-Erbach on the western edge of Erbach, separated from the Rhine bank only by the federal road, dates back to the medieval ancestral seat of the Knights of Erbach. In 1855, Princess Marianne of Prussia acquired the estate including the Rhine island Mariannenaue; the property remained in the family of Prussia until 1987. After more than two decades with changing owners, the Lergenmüller family from Hainfeld in the Palatinate took over the estate in 2013 — winemaker Stefan Lergenmüller together with his co-shareholders. The Lergenmüllers bring their own roots in German viticulture: their parent estate in the Palatinate has been family-owned since 1538. Reinhartshausen is managed as an independent business.
Origin as a guiding principle — and consistently organic viticulture
The estate's credo is: the more narrowly the origin of a wine is defined, the higher its quality. All grapes come exclusively from own cultivation — neither grapes nor bulk wine are purchased. The approximately 80 hectares of vineyard area, which make the estate the largest privately managed winery in the Rheingau, are divided into two fundamentally different terroirs: the classic mainland single vineyards in Erbach and Hattenheim as well as the Rhine island Mariannenaue. The island was formed about 10,000 years ago from alpine sand and gravel on limestone bedrock; its microclimate in the middle of the Rhine differs noticeably from the mainland. Since 2021, the entire winery has been organic-certified. In the vineyard, manual labor is in the foreground; in the cellar, the quality of the grapes is preserved after selective harvesting with reduced use of technology, patience, and precision.
Two worlds in the glass: Riesling sites and island wines
The range is divided into two clearly different worlds of origin. On the mainland, the great single vineyards are the focus: Marcobrunn, Hattenheimer Nussbrunnen, Hattenheimer Wisselbrunnen, Siegelsberg, and Hohenrain, plus the Erbacher Schlossberg as a monopoly site in sole ownership. Riesling is the dominant grape variety — from accessible estate wines to Grosses Gewächs from the most renowned sites of the middle Rheingau. The house's wines traditionally count among the most age-worthy of the Rheingau. On the Mariannenaue, Weißburgunder, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Roter Riesling grow on 24 hectares — varieties that mature into independent character wines in the special island microclimate and open up the estate's spectrum far beyond the classic Rheingau Riesling. The program is supplemented by more experimental approaches, including an orange wine, which shows that the house does not perceive tradition and curiosity as a contradiction.
