Pfalz Region

Wines

Jan & Doris Eymael

Pfeffingen Estate

Pfalz, Germany

The Pfeffingen wine estate is nestled in the midst of beautifully contoured vineyards. This family-run estate is managed with one goal in mind — delivering the highest possible wine quality every year.

The entire estate, with its abundance of flowers, artefacts (left over from Roman times), and friendly people, make it seem that it could never have been any other way. Yet it took half a century of development and hard work for the old multi-crop farm to become the modern, quality-orientated Pfeffingen wine estate. This has been the life's work of Karl and Helene Fuhrmann.
Today Doris Eymael and her son Jan run the Weingut Pfeffingen with continuity and innovation.

The vineyards stretch westward from the estate up the slope or lie directly around the house in relatively flat, warm sites with alluvial soil that always provides Kabinett-quality wines. During the second half of the 1980s, all of the vineyards were replanted as part of land reallocation measures. They now stretch over a total of 15 hectares (total annual production of 9,000 cases). The best sites are Herrenberg and Weilberg, which in places have Terra Rossa (red clay), and in others, limestone covered by a top layer of loess.

In 1999 Doris and Jan Eymael introduced a range of great dry Riesling wines (called Grosses Gewächs wines) made from their best vineyards Herrenberg and Weilberg, reflecting the great personality of its terroir.

The estate's main grape variety is Riesling, which, accounting for more than two thirds of the vineyard area, thrives in this excellent location in the heart of the Mittelhaardt Mountains.

A speciality of the estate is the aromatic Scheurebe, one of the few new grape varieties that produce grand, unique wines. The traditional Gewürztraminer and Pinot Blanc varieties round out the range of white varieties. In the middle of the 1990s Pfeffingen planted small quantities of Pinot Noir and Dornfelder, experimenting with red varieties for the first time.

The estate's wines are marked by low per-hectare yields (average of 55 hl/ha), relatively late, selective harvesting of fully ripe grapes. These factors contribute a unique note while maintaining the individuality of the grape varieties, the sites and the quality types of the wines produced.

They make Pfeffingen wines truly unmistakable. Aromatic clarity, maturity, clean juicy fruit and strong but elegant body are notable characteristics of these wines.

Numerous national awards and recognition from the international wine press demonstrate that the estate's policy of consistent quality has a positive effect on aroma and flavor.

The Fuhrmann and Eymael families are influenced by the fact that they live together at the Pfeffingen estate. Separated from the village, the family draws closer together, and visitors brighten up the family's everyday routine.

This is something that private customers seem to realize, because they are still the estate's most important group of customers, even though the wine and restaurant trades and the export markets (United States, Japan, etc.) have also become more important.

A Member of the VDP since 1985, the estate received 20 State Honor Prizes and therefore is one of the most highly rated estates in all of Germany. Gault Millau Magazine awards the estate with 4 of 5 possible stars.