Big Risks, High Stakes: The New Climate Calculus on the Kaiserstuhl

It is a landscape rife with charms and challenges: From their perch atop the Oberrotweiler Eichberg, on a long-dormant volcano that rises to 310 meters, Johannes Landerer and Jakob Moise can enjoy some of the finest views over the Kaiserstuhl and sprawling Rhine Basin in Baden. The early morning sun is quickly rising, but the Kaiserstuhl, normally a place of striking warmth, has seen an unusual amount of precipitation in the summer of 2024, leaving it greener than at any time in recent memory.

But if this pair of Kaiserstuhl winegrowers agree on anything, it’s that this situation is likely to remain the exception, not the rule. “There’s just not enough water on the whole and the trend is toward climate extremes, especially in terms of temperatures,” says Landerer, who operates his estate in the nearby town of Vogtsburg.

A Real-Time Laboratory for the Climate Future

The Kaiserstuhl, which tends toward scorching heat in high summer, is one of Germany’s most extreme spots for viticulture. This also makes it into a laboratory of sorts, offering insights into the potential future of other wine regions. Nature has started following different rules here, posing a never-ending series of new tasks. To survive, the region’s winegrowers must consider whether tried-and-tested methods must now be questioned. The starting point for these trends was 2003, a year of notable heat when “nobody started out expecting their harvest would ultimately be raisins,” says Landerer. Since then, an “extreme weather roller coaster” has developed with unsettling speed.

Especially in challenging and uncertain times, common enemies can make for strange bedfellows. This is the case with Landerer and Moise. The former grew up in Baden, with generations of winegrowing tradition to his name. Moise, by contrast, arrived from the Lower Rhine, a region better known for its beer. Not long ago, pooling their resources to circumvent a crisis would have been unthinkable. “But the time to withdraw and play your cards close to the vest is past,” says Moise. 

This reflects the gravity of the problems besetting the industry. Finding a solution will inherently involve clashes between deeply held traditions and existential modern challenges. The Kaiserstuhl is perhaps an ideal sandbox for this, filled with an eclectic and vibrant wine scene featuring everyone from old-school traditionalists to experimental-minded newcomers. It’s a microcosm for the facets and forces that may shape winegrowing in general going forward. 

Working on the water-poor Eichberg, Johannes Landerer is experimenting with drought-resistant rootstock, to be grafted over to Spätburgunder after a few years: This method is fairly common in southern Europe and California, but has yet to prove its mettle on the Kaiserstuhl. 

To do so, Landerer first needed to clear a block of Riesling, which he then replanted with new rootstock in 2023. “This may be our future, the need to plant vines sustainably and irrigation-free under the conditions of climate change,” explains Moise, who cultivates vineyards on the Schönberg in the Markgräflerland and on the Kaiserstuhl, and who also works as a consultant in organic winegrowing. Time is of the essence. Yet because the rootstock is subject to government approval, things are stuck in a bit of a “gray zone”: “We have to make progress now. We can’t wait ten more years.” 

Importing Lessons from Sicily

Ihringen-based Roberto Raspini counts among the restless newcomers to the industry and is a strong proponent of natural wine. The Sicilian native came to Baden eight years ago already experienced in winegrowing under extreme conditions, namely on Mount Etna. He views his work there as a potential blueprint for viticulture on the Kaiserstuhl: Although Sicily typically lends itself to lower acidity, its wines nevertheless present with astounding freshness because growers there have long been engaged in discussions of how to work in an age of climate change. 

“Here grapes are often harvested overripe, seeking wines with a late-harvest character,” Raspini says. He keeps his yields low to achieve moderate alcohol levels with full physiological ripeness. He prepares the vineyard soils with green cover for grapes with a low pH value and stable acidity: “I’m surprised by the emphasis placed on the appearance of many vineyards here in Baden. They look as uniform as soccer fields, even if that means a tremendous amount of water loss. A bit of reconsideration could bring a lot of improvement.”

“No one-size-fits-all solution anymore”

Friedrich Keller was out in his vineyards by early morning, as they must be constantly monitored in humid conditions. “Viticulture is increasingly turning into an open experiment,” he says. “We need more than just a strategy in the vineyard. We need a toolbox full of approaches.” Since he took the reins at VDP member estate Weingut Franz Keller in Oberbergen back in 2016, at least one thing has remained consistent: The mission of creating bone-dry wines, of the sort that were controversial in the Kaiserstuhl when his grandfather Franz started making them.

“As a group, we winegrowers aren’t necessarily afraid to act, but at this point those reactions often have to come very quickly.” In some years, the canopy walls are kept short to promote photosynthesis in the vines; in other years it is essential to let them grow high to provide shade. The canopy work is part of the effort to either slow down or accelerate the power and vitality of the vineyard. “We have to be extremely flexible and cannot just keep doing the same old thing year after year as people used to. There’s just no one-size-fits-all solution anymore.”

“Winegrowing has become a much more emotional affair,” summarizes Keller. He knows a few colleagues who ended up “almost empty-handed” in tough years like 2024, and who are struggling to survive. Winegrowers like Keller are increasingly giving heed to the science behind the weather, learning to track extreme fluctuations in weather conditions — “like when it’s 40° Celsius in Albania but here it’s only raining,” but also understanding that next year could bring the exact opposite. Uncertainty is the only reliable constant.

His estate has holdings in some of the Kaiserstühl’s finest sites, including the Achkarrer Schlossberg, which is facing increasing drought stress and which many producers already see as reaching the edge of viability — although Keller himself disputes that assessment. 

Even if some are prophesying the end of the era of greatness for Pinot family icons from the Schlossberg, he decries that view as “overly apocalyptic. There is still plenty of potential for us to achieve balance. We have to do everything in our power for these grand sites. After all, challenges bring out the best in people.”

Building a Broader Foundation

2024 was a frustrating year for organic winegrowers, and some estates spent the year engaged in a desperate struggle for survival. Ronald Linder, whose relocated farm sits on the outskirts of Endingen, must surely be feeling the strain, but he presents a stoic face to the moods of nature. 

In this high-stakes game, big risks are needed. This means working on the fundamental principles of probiotic agriculture, which focus on limiting intervention to plant-based extracts, teas, liquid manure, ferments, wheys, and stone flours.

Linder’s approach is consciously laissez-faire, acknowledging that nature is the supreme force, giving and taking at will. “Some people are aghast at what I’m doing,” Linder says. “But you have to learn to let go.” As a proponent of probiotic viticulture, he has to accept that heavy losses, or even the complete loss of a vintage, are a recurring problem. “I stand by my decision,” explains Ronald Linder. His own grandmother died of cancer, he says, and “I have no desire to poison anyone.”

The viticultural crisis has drawn out his inventive side: “You have to be a lot more diverse, otherwise climate change will drive you crazy.” Spring frosts are more of a threat than ever, in part because mild winters are encouraging earlier bud break in the vines. The situation is exacerbated by the Kaiserstuhl’s exceptional humidity. In just a few days, vineyards can shift into a paradise for rapid-spreading fungal diseases like powdery mildew. 

Linder has begun pressing wines from various plums, cassis, and even tomatoes. He also raises sheep and chickens, as well as various types of vegetables based on the principle of permaculture. He is toying with the idea of opening a restaurant at the estate to provide a venue for leveraging his harvests. Linder, who began his career as a train conductor and electrician, is not dedicated exclusively to winegrowing to the same degree as some estates. He aims to “create a broader foundation: I am focused on a complete mixed agricultural shop. I’m not a wine nerd. I’m a nature and organics nerd.”

A World Between Neighbors

Reinhold and Cornelia Schneider, who live just down the street from the Endinger Stadttor, are highly skeptical of this approach. Probiotic viticulture and permaculture are, in their view, “charlatanism. We know they don’t work.” For Reinhold Schneider, viticulture is a craft one has to learn from scratch, earning a deepening understanding over time of how to work around problems using experience and intuition. Although the estates are almost neighbors, there is a world between them. 

“There are some years where you simply have to spray more, otherwise you will lose everything,” says Roland Schneider, who doesn’t shy from fungicides like phosphoric acid, which are not permitted in organic winegrowing. “You can’t feed everyone organically,” says the couple, who are considered among the staunch traditionalists and who still call their Grauburgunder “Ruländer” in the style of their parents and grandparents.

“Wine is something conservative in my eyes,” says Reinhold Schneider, who is skeptical of fashions and trends. He does not see earlier harvests — a common approach in the industry at present — as an acceptable tool for handling climate change; “I don’t like the taste of those wines.”

The Schneiders are instead willing to harness the advantage of climate change. They encourage substance and power in their wines, so long as they are harmonious in their elements: “We are seeing better Spätburgunder than at any time in the past. By the time it stops working here, they’ll have long since had to stop making wine at all in Bordeaux.” 

Roland Schneider is also dismissive of the trend toward fungus-resistant varieties, which many on the Kaiserstuhl are farming at this point: “[It’s] no solution, it remains a niche.” After all, he feels, PIWIs are resistant to fungal disease, but not drought. They aren’t going to be the thing to save viticulture, he says, embracing his role as a contrarian: There are simply too many vines in areas that aren’t appropriate for it. 

“Even if people don’t want to hear it, there are going to be spaces where winegrowing will have to be abandoned. Some people would probably be better off just giving up making wine. But in our industry you can’t say these things openly,” says Schneider.

“We can’t afford to get caught up in taboos”

Matthias Höfflin of Schambachtal, near Bötzingen in the eastern Kaiserstuhl, occupies a middle ground between these two extremes. He planted his first Souvignier Gris, a PIWI variety, in 2013. It has become a mainstay for him, reminding him of Pinot grapes. In the decades since Höfflin took over his parents’ Bioland-certified estate, in 1987 at the tender age of 20, he has become a master of working with phenolics: He was an early proponent of extended maceration and whole cluster fermentation, explaining “I have an Eastern European image and concept of wine.”

When he tastes his wines with staff members from eastern Europe, they often say: “That tastes like my homeland.” Höfflin redefined the importance and function of phenols in wine — including as elements that give structure and grip, which are of growing importance in the age of climate change and which, when perfectly dosed, produce structure, grip, and freshness. Many estates are working with phenols at this point, but few can boast his levels of proficiency — a skill that outshines most eastern European estates as well. 

The weather extremes are “so crazy,” says Höfflin, that they demand a different kind of winegrowing, but not necessarily “a worse one. We have to think 400 kilometers further south, and of the varieties you find there.” His son Julius, who now produces several wines of his own at the estate, including a Nebbiolo, is willing to “question the Pinot family varieties” in ways that the older winegrower is not yet willing to do. But Grauburgunder, the quintessential Kaiserstuhl variety, is what concerns him most, “as it seems to be struggling the most.” July dawned with all the glory of a fine summer. “We can’t afford to get caught up in taboos.”

Translated by weinstory.de