Summary
Weingut Lukas Hammelmann in Zeiskam is one of the most exciting young projects in the southern Pfalz. Lukas Hammelmann built the estate from scratch in 2016 without a family winery to inherit – with a few small parcels, a day job and a very clear idea of how his wines should taste. Today he farms around five hectares in Zeiskam, Hochstadt and Neustadt-Hambach, predominantly Riesling, plus Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The wines appear under the 3M2N label and follow a purist signature: fermentation in wooden casks, minimal intervention, little sulphur. In 2023 the VINUM Weinguide Deutschland named him Discovery of the Year.
History
The story of this estate is unusual because it lacks all the usual ingredients: no family winery, no inherited vineyard, no eighteenth-century cellar. Lukas Hammelmann comes from Zeiskam, a village in the Germersheim district known across the Pfalz mainly for vegetables – onions and field crops shape the landscape more than rows of vines.
Hammelmann learned the trade from the ground up, worked as an employee at first and began making his own wine on the side in 2016. The start was as small as it gets: a single Riesling parcel, then step by step further plots around Zeiskam. Within a few years the side project had become a business of its own, trading as LH-Wines – Die Zeiskamer Weinmanufaktur and selling its wines under the 3M2N label.
The rise was rapid. As early as 2023 the VINUM Weinguide Deutschland named Hammelmann Discovery of the Year – at a point when the estate was producing barely 20,000 bottles a year. Growth at any price is explicitly not the goal: around five hectares is meant to remain the ceiling, so that every vineyard and every cask can be looked after personally.
Location & Terroir
The vineyards are spread across three villages with markedly different subsoils – and that is precisely where the range draws its tension from.
In Zeiskam itself, sandstone, loam and loess shape the soils. The wines from here are more approachable and broader in build, with soft fruit expression. In Hochstadt, also in the southern Pfalz, noticeably more limestone comes into play, giving the Rieslings and the Chardonnay tautness, salinity and a cooler line. The smallest holding lies in Neustadt-Hambach on the edge of the Mittelhaardt, where red and yellow Buntsandstein dominate – and, a rarity in the Pfalz, gneiss also occurs. These parcels yield the estate's finest and most mineral wines.
Climatically, all three sites benefit from the mild, sunny Pfalz on the eastern edge of the Palatinate Forest. Farming is organic but deliberately uncertified – a decision Hammelmann justifies pragmatically: what matters is the work in the vineyard, not the seal on the bottle.
Style & Philosophy
The basic attitude in the cellar can be summed up in one sentence: do as little as possible, but do it with maximum attention. The grapes are pressed directly and the musts ferment spontaneously in wooden casks of various sizes. With Riesling, malolactic fermentation is not suppressed, which gives the wines a creamier texture and an unusual calm. Sulphur is used sparingly and many wines go into bottle unfiltered.
Estate and village wines are usually bottled after about a year, while the top wines stay close to two years in cask. There are no recipes: every vintage is rethought, and decisions are made by tasting and feel rather than by formula. The result is wines that come across as restrained and structured rather than showily fruity – and that mostly need a few years in bottle to reveal what they hold.
Notable Sites & Wines
The range is classically tiered – from estate wine through village wines to the single vineyards. The most important origins include:
- Zeiskamer Klostergarten – the home site on sandstone, loam and loess
- Hochstadter Roter Berg – limestone-driven, the basis for Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir
- Hambacher Schlossberg and the Schlossberg terraces – Buntsandstein and gneiss, the estate's finest wines
Alongside these come cuvées and village wines with names of their own, such as the Riesling ZIMKAES, whose name goes back to the dialect form of the village name Zeiskam. Around 70 percent of production is Riesling; Pinot Noir and Chardonnay round out the picture with slender, wood-aged wines.
Awards
The most important recognition to date is being named Discovery of the Year in the VINUM Weinguide Deutschland 2023 – a category that deliberately honours estates which have reached a high level from nothing. Beyond that, the wines have a presence in the German-language wine press and with specialist merchants, and are now exported to several European countries as well as to the USA and Asia. For an estate of this size, founded only in 2016, that is a remarkable reach.