From left: Theresa Olkus, Melanie Broyé-Engelkes, Luise Böhme
Melanie Broyé-Engelkes, a seasoned marketing executive and entrepreneur from Paris and Luise Böhme, a former nationally competitive athlete from eastern Germany, have joined Theresa Olkus, a communications specialist from Württemberg, to form a triumverate that — in ways large and small — now steers the future of German wine.
Valerie Kathawala specializes in the wines of Germany and Austria. Her work appears in the pages of regularly in Noble Rot and SevenFifty Daily. She is the author of the "German Wine Scholar" (2025).
Roughly once a generation, the German government pops the hood on the country’s wine law for a tune up. 2021 is one such year, with a new set of revisions taking effect in early May. On the surface, the changes appear more incremental than revolutionary. Yet controversy has followed as various stakeholders realize that some new wrinkles may have unexpectedly far-reaching consequences. So let’s pour ourselves a glass of dry wine (law) and savor some juicy power dynamics. Here are the early winners and losers of the 2021 German Wine Act. Winner: The VDP’S Long Game You can’t say the…...
Archetype, a Portland, Oregon-based import start-up, is focused on Alpine wines. They are refining consumer's understanding of the category and building community near and far.
Some say it lacks the historical cache of the Rheingau, the legendary vineyard names of the Mosel, or the easy charm of neighboring Rheinhessen. There are no convenient river boats to ferry you between wine villages, nor even particularly good train connections. No argument: the Nahe [NAHH-heh] Valley demands that you put in a bit of work to explore its more far-flung corners. The reward for those efforts is some of the most objectively fascinating landscapes, geology, climate, and wines anywhere in Germany. In fact, things can get downright adventurous in Germany’s version of the (Wine) Wild West. From the…...
For the longest time, Sekt was a dirty word. It stood for bottles of inexpensive, easy fizz with obnoxious plastic corks to be found on the street, next to the debris of spent fireworks, on New Year’s Day. Leftovers from high jinks and cheap thrills the night before. But that was then. Today, Sekt’s star is once again on the rise. We cannot even say that it is returning to its former glory because the story of German Sekt today is unprecedented and, quite literally, effervescent. It was the 20th century that destroyed with consummate efficiency what was once so promising, so frivolous,…...