The "Stern Winery & Distillery" is located in the municipality of Hochstadt (Südliche Weinstraße area) in the German wine-growing region of
Pfalz. In 1952, Josef Stern, a trained cooper, bought his first vineyard, followed by the first home-distilled schnapps in 1960. His son Wolfgang, who was trained as a winemaker and cellar master, took over the business in 1980 and began bottling for the first time. Since 2003, the business has been run jointly with son Dominic, who trained as a "technician for viticulture and oenology" in
Weinsberg and gained practical experience at renowned wineries in the Southern Palatinate, South Africa and the Austrian Wachau. The vineyards cover 8.5 hectares of vines in the single vineyard Roter Berg (Hochstadt). They are planted with the white wine varieties Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Silvaner, Müller-Thurgau, Kerner, Morio-Muskat and Gewürztraminer, as well as with the red wine varieties Pinot Noir, St. Laurent, Dornfelder, Portugieser, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot
Natural, environmentally friendly viticulture is consistently practised, for example, with no
nitrogen fertilisers,
cover crop with
legumes and environmentally friendly pest control using
pheromones. Important quality criteria in the vineyard are
short pruning, removal of double shoots at budbreak and
thinning out (green harvest), so that the vine is reduced many times over by the normal amount of growth in the course of the vegetation period. In the cellar, the grapes, must and wine are processed gently. After controlled fermentation at 15 to 19 °Celsius and long yeast storage, the white wines are matured according to variety. The best Rieslings and Pinot Blancs are fermented with natural yeasts and matured in large wooden barrels and in barriques. The red wines mature in large oak barrels after traditional mash fermentation, the highest-quality ones in new barriques for up to 18 months. Bottle-fermented sparkling wines, noble brandies (fruit, yeast, marc) and liqueurs are also produced
