The Ziereisen winery in Efringen Kirchen in the Markgräflerland in Baden has meanwhile become an institution in its own right. Hanspeter Ziereisen originally trained as a carpenter and is therefore a real career changer who has never trained as a winemaker.
His parents ran a mixed farm with pigs, cows and 0.5 hectares of vineyards. Overall, the place was characterized by part-time winegrowers who gave their grapes to the cooperative. The successor to the farm was initially uncertain, since none of the children wanted to continue it. In 1991, Hanspeter followed in his parents’ footsteps with the clear goal of turning it into a winery. The small area yielded a first vintage of just 6000 bottles in 1993. Acquisitions and leases followed, and over time the business grew to today’s 21 hectares. Hanspeter was interested in wine from an early age and so he tried a lot of the most interesting wines in the world. This is how he discovered his love for the red Burgundy. These are still the heart of the company today. With his style, Hanspeter Ziereisen encountered a lot of resistance. An individualist, as fellow winemakers call him, who doesn’t want to produce pleasing wines, but independent ones. Spontaneous fermentation, long maceration times, long yeast storage, no filtration and the use of large and small wooden barrels – all this characterizes his style. This stubbornness or the clear definition of one’s own style was also punished in the official wine testing. His wines did not fit the classic German profile and could therefore only be sold as country wines. Hanspeter Ziereisen stayed with his line and today his wines are their own brand. In the meantime a conscious decision in order to be able to design the wines in a way that corresponds to the philosophy and to be able to place the character of the wines in the foreground.
