# The Weinstrasse Wine Route: A Dark Past, a Bright Future > Travel Germany's oldest wine route: tastings, vineyards and a controversial past. Discover what makes the Weinstrasse thrive today. - URL: https://langandtrip.com.ua/en/article/vynnyi-marshrut-vainshtrasse-temne-mynule-svitle-maibutnie/ - Language: en - Published: 2025-05-03 - Categories: Culture, Historic Sites, Tours, Germany, Food & Drinks, Parties --- Plenty of roads lay claim to the name "wine route": from the trails of Napa and Sonoma in California to Stellenbosch in South Africa and the Murray River valley in Australia. The very first, though, was the Deutsche Weinstrasse, created exactly 80 years ago in the Pfalz (Palatinate) region and winding through 37 towns and villages across Germany. Bad Durkheim is where I begin my journey. It is a modern German town, redeemed by a vast botanical garden, a medieval abbey and the ruins of a 13th-century castle. A little to the north lies the tidy, sleepy village of Kallstadt, where Donald Trump's grandfather Friedrich emigrated to the United States with his wife. I arrived in mid-September, when Bad Durkheim hosts the Wurstmarkt, which bills itself as the largest wine festival in the world, drawing 600,000 visitors every year. ## A Hidden Art Looking out at the tents packed with people drinking on long benches, the brass bands and the fairground rides, I am reminded of Oktoberfest. How is it that so few people outside Germany know about the Weinstrasse and its festivals? The Germans seem in no hurry to promote it. Why? The clue is all but hidden in Bad Durkheim's church, the Ludwigskirche, where a fresco behind the altar depicts the crucifixion of Christ. Strangely, no one noticed while it was being painted that one of the thieves crucified alongside Jesus bears an unmistakable resemblance to Adolf Hitler, pencil moustache and all. The artist, Paul Thalheimer, painted it in 1935, before he was forced to flee Nazi Germany, where he was later banned as a degenerate artist. His apparent act of defiance coincided with a scheme by the local Nazi party leader, Josef Burckel, to turn the area into a hub of wine tourism. That backstory has led the Weinstrasse to become known as "a stroke of genius with a problematic origin." In 1935, Burckel faced two problems. First, the wine trade in the surrounding Pfalz region was in the hands of Jewish merchants, who were barred from working in the Third Reich. Second, record harvests in 1934 and 1935 had sent prices crashing. ## A Wine Dream So Burckel dreamed up a wine route linking the main wineries on the left bank of the Rhine. It stretched 85 kilometers (53 miles) from the village of Bockenheim to Schweigen on the French border. Burckel opened the Weinstrasse with a speech in Bad Durkheim on October 19, 1935. It was followed the next day by a rally of 800 cars and an aggressive push to sell wine in German cities. The concept worked. Wine sales soared. The world's best wine routes and tours Today the Weinstrasse is as idyllic as it was back then, running past hillside vineyards shaded by almond, fig and chestnut trees. It threads through well-kept villages with narrow cobbled lanes, overlooked by stone houses and balconies spilling over with red geraniums. Deidesheim is the most strikingly picturesque village on the route, home to the venerable von Buhl winery. "The Pfalz has had a checkered history of winemaking," says Klaus Kusters, the retail manager, as he pours a superb Riesling. "After the war, they bet on quantity, and quality fell to record lows. The 1970s and 1980s were the days of Blue Nun and Black Tower, supermarket wines advertised on television in the US and Britain." "Yields were astronomical, up to 18,000 bottles per hectare, whereas nowadays they are capped at a maximum of 9,000. Fewer grapes, stronger flavor." ## A Happy Accident ![](/storage/image/prev/june-article-image-2-1-2025.jpg) The 1990s were a turning point for Pfalz wines. Producers realized they had to compete around the world on quality alone. The EU also forced Germany to abandon its restrictive practices. In the past, a winemaker could be held liable for a very German offense: growing Chardonnay in a Riesling area. Neustadt is the wine metropolis of the Weinstrasse, full of half-timbered houses beside Baroque buildings and a church split into Protestant and Catholic halves. Hans-Christian Stolleis is just 23, yet he is already deeply involved in the family wine business on the outskirts of Neustadt. He has just returned from Berlin, where the family's wines were served at the German president's "Burgerfestival," a 6,500-strong party where German citizens are honored for their commitment to public service. The Stolleis vineyard, which once produced wines by appointment to the Bavarian court, now grows, among other things, an exceptionally rare Auxerrois, a slightly sweeter version of Pinot Blanc. "In 1957 we planted Pinot Blanc, and the Auxerrois got mixed in by accident," Stolleis explains. "Some of the vines ripened earlier. Fifteen years ago we finally analyzed their DNA and discovered two different varieties." ## Generation Pfalz ![](/storage/image/prev/june-article-image-2-2-2025.jpg) This time, instead of prosecution, the authorities allowed the Auxerrois to be grown. A good call, since it is perhaps the most interesting wine I tasted on the Weinstrasse. Stolleis is one of a new wave of winemakers who call themselves "Generation Pfalz," people with wine in their blood. In 2015 they launched a competition among 70 wineries whose owners are under 40. Here, on the French border, Burckel raised the Wine Gate in October 1936. The triumphal monument still stands, but now bears some later graffiti: a crudely drawn map of Texas with the name Jere Wills and the date 3-45, when American troops occupied the region. Alsace is just a few hundred meters away, and we cross the border into France and back while visiting the vineyards. Every conversation is about the coming harvest. Andreas tastes his Pinot grapes. Perfectly ripe, he will pick them tomorrow. Although the area is famous for Riesling, it is the Pinot Noir wines from Grimm and Julg that I find outstanding. "Wine is our passion here in the Pfalz," says Julg. "Our generation loves to socialize and swap ideas. We all know one another. We bring our wines to barbecue parties, drink them, critique them. We work together, not against each other." Eighty years after the birth of the Weinstrasse, the drive and enthusiasm of the young, along with the exceptional quality of the wines, are finally eclipsing its troubled origins. It is long overdue. ## Visiting the Weinstrasse The best way to visit the area is to fly into Frankfurt and rent a car at the airport. Start the Wine Route at Bad Durkheim, 105 kilometers to the southwest. From there it is just 61 kilometers to the Wine Gate at Schweigen. You can also take a train to Mannheim from Frankfurt's central station (35 minutes). The S4 tram runs from Mannheim to Bad Durkheim (50 minutes). Another Mannheim tram, the S1, goes to Neustadt. There are buses and local trains to most of the villages from Neustadt. The best time to visit is September or October, when all the village festivals take place and new wine is on offer at supermarket prices.