Wine in Dresden Elbland

Today, the Saxon taste is the fruit of more than 850 years of viticulture tradition. A place where special wines thrive like no other, thanks to the rich soil, a suitable climate and years of insight – despite being one of Europe’s smallest wine-growing regions. Over just 511 hectares, real rarities mature and come to the fore. But comprising just 0.2% of the total German wine-growing area, Saxon wines are very much quality over quantity.

Grapes thrive like nowhere else in the balmy Dresden-Elbe-Valley climate; indulging in over 1600 hours of sunshine each year. This part of Saxony, between Pirna and Diesbar-Seußlitz as one of the 17 different winegrowing strongholds, is also the warmest in the region. All of this is made possible by the 1860 wine growers, 96% of whom operate on a very small scale and make nurturing the sensitive wines their vocation.

Many grape varieties find their ideal home between the Elster Valley and Meissen: Mueller-Thurgau, Riesling and Pinot Blanc, Dornfelder and Traminer – they leave you wanting more! We can also revisit a rare treasure in Goldriesling – which is scarce nowadays anywhere else but Saxony.

A good hint: To really get on board with the region and its people, the best is to visit one of the popular autumn wine festivals!

Winegrowing in the Elbe valley dates back to 1161, although Bishop Benno of Meissen almost certainly planted vines in his diocese as early as 1100. The first plants to arrive in the region were probably brought by Frankish settlers or travellers. Production came properly on tap in the 16th century, and by the mid-17th, as much as 5,000 hectares of land had been devoted to winegrowing between the Elbe valley and the Lausitz (Lusatia). The next boost to the trade came in 1799, when the Saxon Winegrowers’ Association came into being and opened Europe’s first winegrowing college in Meissen in 1811. But it wasn’t all rosy: first came mildew, followed soon after by a devastating phylloxera plague which almost decimated the industry. In 1912, only 150 hectares of vines remained extant, shrinking to a mere 60 after the Second World War. Nor did much improve with the first decades of the GDR.

Tentative steps made to usher in a new era took until the early 1980s to transpire. As former vineyards were replanted, many hobby winegrowers seized their chance, while the Cold War thaw in 1989 sped things up. As benchmark wine legislation was issued and the new (or re-established) estates opened up, the vineyards gained a second wind, as exemplified today by widely acclaimed wines from slopes such as Radebeul Goldener Wagen, Meissen Kapitelberg and the Royal Vineyard in Pillnitz. Saxony’s 850-year-old wine tradition has risen phoenix-like from the ashes, thanks in no small measure to the enthusiastic efforts of a new generation of winegrowers.