Chat Sauvage

The winery is located in the municipality of Johannisberg (part of Geisenheim) in the German wine-growing region of Rheingau. The winery is owned by Guenter Schulz, with Verena Schöttle as the farm manager and cellar master. It all began in 2000 with a first wine made from bought-in Pinot Noir grapes. Subsequently, vineyards and fallow land were acquired and special methods were tested and developed in the vineyard and cellar to achieve the desired wine style. In 2010, the company moved from the Schamari Mill to a new facility in Johannisberg. The vineyards cover eight hectares of vines in the very steep single vineyard sites of Hölle (Johannisberg), Kläuserweg (Geisenheim), Berg Roseneck, Berg Rottland, Bischofsberg, Drachenstein and Klosterlay (Rüdesheim), Frankenthal and Höllenberg (Assmannshausen), Bodental-Steinberg, Kapellenberg, Krone, Schlossberg and Pfaffenwies (Lorch), and Dachsberg (Winkel).

They are planted with 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay. The vineyards are cultivated in an environmentally friendly way using organic fertiliser and compost. Only ripe and healthy grapes are harvested and processed through repeated defoliation, quality-enhancing yield reduction with rigorous thinning out by cutting the grapes in half and selective manual harvesting. The red wines undergo maceration, mature for at least 18 months in barriques after pressing the must and are bottled without filtration. The white wines ferment in barrique, age for a long time on the fine lees and mature for 11 months in barrique. Around 30,000 bottles of wine are produced annually.