For centuries, Hamburg has been a city of wine merchants and cellars. However, during the past few decades almost all of the old bottlers closed their doors.
Going against this trend, in 2008 we created a 200m2/2200 sq.ft. barrique cellar in our new facility, with the latest bottling and packaging technology. This allows us to age and bottle Rotspon and other fine international wines right here in Hamburg-Billbrook.
This means that in addition to our own brands, we can create special bottle runs for our food service and retail clients – a service that we offer even for smaller quantities.
Rotspon – our quality seal
The “Hansa” was a North European trade association of the 12th-17th centuries, to which Hamburg belonged. During that time there arose the tradition of "rotspon", a red wine that was shipped by sea in barrels from France to the North German Hanseatic ports, allowed to mature in oak barrels, and then bottled by wine merchants. The name “rotspon” (“red stave” from the barrel staves) became a special seal of quality that showed the knowledge of the merchant and the skill of his cellar-master. This still applies today, although the tradition seemed to be almost forgotten.
We select the component wines in France, blend them expertly, and mature them carefully in barrels of American and French oak. Wines are then bottled after 3 or more months, during which they pick up oak notes. The flavourful result is a rich, fruity, harmoniously mature wine, perfect with foods and also delightful on its own.
