The winery is located in the municipality of Hochheim in the German wine-growing region of Rheingau. The Sudeten German family had been growing grapes in Untertannovitz in southern Moravia since 1648, before emigrating to Hochheim after the war in 1945. Franz Künstler managed other wineries in Hochheim for 15 years before finally going into business for himself in 1965. Since 1988, the winery has been run by his son Gunter. In 1996, the Geheimrat Aschrott Erben vineyard with 12 hectares of vines was acquired. These wines are marketed under their own label.
The vineyards of the parent winery Künstler cover 51 hectares of vineyards in the single vineyard sites Domdechaney, Herrnberg, Hölle, Kirchenstück, Reichestal, Stein and Stielweg (Hochheim), Frankenthal and Höllenberg (Assmanshausen), Berg Roseneck, Berg Rottland, Berg Schlossberg and Bischofsberg (Rüdesheim), as well as Weiß Erd (Kostheim). The Marcobrunn (Erbach) and Pfaffenberg (Hattenheim) sites have been leased by Schloss Schönborn since 2021. They are mainly planted with Riesling (80%), as well as Pinot Noir, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Grüner Veltliner and Alvarinho. The vineyards are cultivated in a near-natural way, for example with cover crop and completely without herbicides.
After gentle pressing, the musts for the white wines are fermented cool and slowly in wooden bar rels or stainless steel vats, depending on the site. The Rieslings from the top sites are also bottled in large-format bottles of up to 18 litres. The red wines mature for one year in large and small wooden barrels after mash fermentation and are marketed after a further year of bottle storage. Bottle-fermented sparkling wines are also produced. Around 310,000 bottles of wine are bottled annually. The winery is a member of the VDP (Association of German Prädikat Wine Estates) and Gens de Metier.
