As you have surely noticed through the media, the rising waters of the Ahr River engulfed several villages on July 13, 2021. The Meyer-Näkel winery in Dernau, which was almost completely swept away, was hit particularly hard.
We were all very touched by the fate of the affected people and so we drove to the Ahr on Sunday, July 18, 2021 to help. Our group, consisting of our operations manager Oliver Schmid, our warehouse manager Michael Prinz our estate craftsman Achim Sebo, our former apprentice Julia Schönberger and Christian Ress, pitched in and helped to remove the mud from residential and business premises. Hundreds of bottles from Meyer-Näkel's treasure trove were also successfully salvaged - a small consolation. Since then, other employees, Marius Baumeister, Julia Wolf, Antoine Wetzler, have traveled to the affected area and provided assistance as well. Our house electrician helped with the repair of discarded pumps, which were given to us for this purpose and which we were able to bring to the Ahr in the meantime.
We are totally thrilled with how much the wine community is sticking together in these times. We have met many colleagues on the Ahr who have also shown great commitment: Family Muth from Weingut Rappenhof, Desiree Eser from Weingut Eser, Johannes Hasselbach from Weingut Gunderloch, Theresa Breuer from Weingut Georg Breuer and many more!
Auction in favor of the Ahr viticulture
To further support the Ahr, we have decided to auction a bottle of our 2015 "CAVIAR" Pinot Noir dry 6.0 liters Methusalem VDP Gutswein. In cooperation with the inn "Romantica Ahlen", the auction started publicly on Facebook on Friday, July 23, 2021 and ended on Sunday, 25.07. With only a total of six filled 6-liter bottles, this bottle of our super Pinot is a very special rarity.
In the end, the highest bid was 2,200€ and goes directly and in full to the initiative of the VDP "Der Adler hilft e.V." and thus also makes its contribution to the reconstruction of the Ahr.
