Weingut Schmitt's Kinder (English: Schmitt's Children Winery) is one of the most traditional family

wineries A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, b ...

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...

Viticulture Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...

in the family dates back to 1712, while the name ″Schmitt's Kinder″ dates back to the division of the estate in 1910. Located in

Randersacker Randersacker is a market town and municipality in Lower Franconia, a part of Bavaria, Germany. With its long tradition in wine making, Randersacker is a well-known wine places of Germany. It lies in the Würzburg district, and adjoins to Würzbur ...

, Schmitt's Kinder is noted for their Silvaner (37%), Riesling (14%) and pinot noir (10%). Its estate in the ''Maindreieck'' district ("Main triangle") is the middle portion of Franconia and comprising the sites Pfülben, Marsberg, Sonnenstuhl and Teufelskeller. Weingut Schmitt’s Kinder is a member of the Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter (VDP).

History

Tradition and progress are the two pillars of the winery. This is reflected not only in the wine production, but also in the architecture. The newly constructed winery building at the foot of the Sonnenstuhl site in 1984 was awarded the "Landscape-Oriented Building" prize by the Bavarian Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forestry for its design and good integration into the wine landscape of the Main valley. The heritage-protected

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

ancestral home from 1712 is located in the heart of Randersacker and today serves as a bridge between wine and culture. It houses the studio and gallery of a local landscape painter.

Vineyards and wine

Weingut Schmitt’s Kinder owns a total of 14 hectares of vines around Randersacker, including vines in Randersacker Pfülben and Hohenroth. These are selected sites, capable to produce ″

Grosses Gewächs The German wine classification system puts a strong emphasis on standardization and factual completeness, and was first implemented by the German Wine Law of 1971. Nearly all of Germany's vineyards are delineated and registered as one of approxi ...

″, top-level dry wines. The grapes growing in the Große Gewächslage Randersackerer Sonnenstuhl-Hohenroth are located in a southwest-facing steep slope collecting the sun's energy particularly intensively and – like the Randersackerer Pfülben – is considered one of the best vineyards in Franconia.

Tulipa sylvestris ''Tulipa sylvestris,'' the wild tulip or woodland tulip, is a Eurasian and North African species of wild tulip, a plant in the lily family. Its native range extends from Portugal and Morocco to western China, covering most of the Mediterranea ...

can be found during springtime in the site. The loamy shell limestone soil gives the wine a pronounced minerality and density. Due to the low yields and a selective hand harvest, the wines present themselves full-bodied and with great density. The leading grape variety cultivated is

Silvaner Sylvaner or Silvaner is a variety of white wine grape grown primarily in Alsace and Germany, where its official name is Grüner Silvaner. While the Alsatian versions have primarily been considered simpler wines, it was included among the vari ...

37%,

Riesling Riesling (, ; ) is a white grape variety that originated in the Rhine region. Riesling is an aromatic grape variety displaying flowery, almost perfumed, aromas as well as high acidity. It is used to make dry, semi-sweet, sweet, and sparkling wh ...

14%,

Pinot noir Pinot Noir () is a red-wine grape variety of the species ''Vitis vinifera''. The name may also refer to wines created predominantly from pinot noir grapes. The name is derived from the French language, French words for ''pine'' and ''black.' ...

10%, completed by

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...

Scheurebe Scheurebe or Sämling 88 is a white wine grape variety. It is primarily grown in Germany and Austria, where it often is called Sämling 88 (''English'': Seedling 88), and some parts of the New World. Scheurebe wines are highly aromatic, and the v ...

Sauvignon Blanc is a green-skinned grape variety that originates from the Bordeaux region of France. The grape most likely gets its name from the French words ''sauvage'' ("wild") and ''blanc'' ("white") due to its early origins as an indigenous grape in ...

Pinot blanc Pinot blanc is a white wine grape. It is a point genetic mutation of Pinot noir. Pinot noir is genetically unstable and will occasionally experience a point mutation in which a vine bears all black fruit except for one cane which produces white ...

and the leading red variety of Franconia Domina. The shell-bearing limestone

Muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; french: calcaire coquillier) is a sequence of sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 million ye ...

is the characteristic sedimentary rock of the estate.

Reception

Weingut Schmitt’s Kinder was awarded four stars in Eichelmann Deutschlands Weine 2021 and four stars in the Falstaff Weinguide Deutschland 2021. The VINUM Weinguide Deutschland 2021 lists Schmitt's Kinder with 3.5 stars among the best producers in Franken 2021. The VINUM magazine lists ''Randersackerer Silvaner trocken'' „Große Reserve“ vintage 2018 among Top 10 Deutschland 2021 as second best german wine in his december 2021 edition.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Schmitt's Kinder