Summary
Weingut Lukas Kesselring in Ellerstadt is a family estate with a very long history and a very young second life. Its roots reach back to 1648; its own bottled collection, by contrast, has only existed since 2012. In between lies Lukas Kesselring's decision to take over the estate in 2009, to convert its roughly 25 hectares to organic farming, and to stop selling the grapes on and vinify them himself instead. The result is a range grown organically and made vegan throughout, from the Pfalz – clear, cleanly drawn and remarkably affordable.
History
The Kesselring family has been tied to viticulture in Ellerstadt for a very long time. The estate's history is traced back to 1648 – the time of the Peace of Westphalia, immediately after the Thirty Years' War, which had hit the Pfalz hard. Across the centuries the estate remained what many Palatine family wineries were: a grape grower whose harvest mostly went to third parties.
The break came in 2009. Lukas Kesselring, then 21 years old, took charge – and made two far-reaching decisions at once. First, he converted the vineyards to organic farming. Second, he gradually ended the pure grape-selling business in order to vinify his own harvest. He had prepared for this with viticulture studies in Geisenheim and internships at estates in Germany and abroad.
In 2012 the first collection under his own label came to market. For an estate that had for centuries disappeared behind other people's labels, that is a late start – and one that quickly drew attention.
Location & Terroir
Ellerstadt lies in the district of Bad Dürkheim, in the eastern part of the Pfalz. The village therefore sits not on the Haardt escarpment, where the famous steep sites of Forst and Deidesheim are found, but a little further east towards the Rhine plain – flatter, more open and with distinctly different soils.
The defining soils here are sandy loam and gravel. Gravel warms quickly and stores heat; it makes for brisk, even ripening and gives the wines a certain directness. The loam content holds water and buffers dry spells – a real advantage in the increasingly hot Palatine summers. Add to that the Pfalz's basic endowment: plenty of sun, mild winters, little rainfall. It is a climate that favours ripe, accessible wines and makes organic farming easier, because fungal pressure is lower than in wetter regions.
Style & Philosophy
The estate's two guiding principles are quickly named: organic and vegan.
Organic here means doing without synthetic chemical plant protection, and in exchange careful soil work, cover cropping and more handwork in the vineyard. Vegan means that animal-derived fining agents are avoided entirely – the whites are not fined with gelatine or isinglass, the reds not clarified with egg white. Together, that is a standard many estates adopted much later, or not at all.
Stylistically the aim is not maximum power but clarity. The whites are mostly dry, fresh and true to variety, without an intrusive oak note. The Pinot-family wines get a little more texture, the reds stay juicy rather than heavy. What stands out is how broad the varietal spectrum is – from Riesling and the Pinots through Scheurebe, Gelber Muskateller and Gewürztraminer to Spätburgunder, St. Laurent and the Bordeaux varieties.
Famous Vineyards & Wines
The estate does not work with a handful of famous single vineyards but with the parcels in and around Ellerstadt. The emphasis accordingly falls on estate and varietal wines rather than on site hierarchies. Characteristic of the range are:
- Riesling made dry, the backbone of the white wine programme
- Blends and single-variety wines from Chardonnay and Weißburgunder
- Aromatic varieties such as Scheurebe, Gelber Muskateller and Gewürztraminer
- Spätburgunder and St. Laurent among the reds, plus Cabernet Franc and Merlot
- Secco and sparkling wine as a lively addition
Every wine carries both the organic and the vegan credential – there are no exceptions in the range.
Awards
The very first vintage under his own label drew notice in the trade press and in serious wine retail. What is highlighted again and again is the value for money: the vegan Chardonnay–Weißburgunder blend was counted by Falstaff among the 100 best value-for-money wines in Germany. That is precisely where the estate's real achievement lies – organic and vegan without a surcharge rhetoric, simply as a matter of course across the everyday range.