Weingut Pieper

Pieper Winery - Wine from Drachenfels

Weingut Pieper is a winery in the Siebengebirge in the Rhineland. The winery is located at the legendary Drachenfels. The winery is the largest in North Rhine-Westphalia and produces wines with the site designation "Drachenfels". The winery's red wine is known as "Drachenblut" and is exported all over the world. 

The winery was founded in the 80s by Adolf Wilhelm "Bobbi" Pieper. The trained technician for viticulture and cellar technician wanted to produce wines with character and quality on the Drachenfels site. Today he is mainly active in administration and marketing, the viticulture itself is now in the hands of Felix Pieper. He studied viticulture and oenology and completed various internships in a wide variety of countries, which allowed him to gather a wide variety of impressions that are now combined in the wines of the estate.

Heike Pieper and daughter Roxana are mainly active in the administration and are active in the estate tavern "Jesuiter Hof".

The soil is shaped by fire

The Siebengebirge begins south of Bonn and goes to the North Rhine-Westphalian border. It is characterized by soils of potash-rich trachyte rock and graywacke soils with a high clay content. Combined with the mild climate offered by the Cologne-Bonn Bay, ideal conditions for quality viticulture are found here.

9 hectares of vineyards are available to the Piepers to express their version of the terroir. The vineyards are located at elevations ranging from 60 to 140 meters with a south-southwest exposure. The slopes are thus thoroughly warmed by the sun. The greatest temperature peaks are absorbed by the nearby Rhine. 

Trachyte is the defining rock for the wines of the Pieper winery. It is a volcanic effusive rock not unlike rhyolite and granite. The soils are stony with porous fine soil. This type of soil can be well warmed, the high potassium content buffers the tartaric acid quite well, producing harmonious and rounded ones. Soils of this type are called empyromatic by oenologists.

From the mountain to the cellar - the wine from Pieper Winery

The Pieper winery relies on a high diversity of varieties in its vineyards. This allows them to offer a wide range of wines, where there is something for everyone. These grape varieties are for example 

• Pinot Blanc
• Pinot Gris
• Riesling
• Gewürztraminer
• Yellow Muscat
• Grüner Veltliner
• Pinot Noir
• Portugieser
• Dunkelfelder

The Piepers have deliberately opted for lower yields but higher quality. Hand harvesting is a matter of course, the grapes are transported to the cellar in small containers. Modern technology is used in the cellar to preserve the quality as much as possible. Musts of individual grape varieties are fundamentally fermented separately, the wine gets long lees contact, in order to make already the young wines of high quality and to have a good basis for further processing. Today, the Pieper winery produces a variety of wines, sparkling wines and also brandies.