25 years of Hades: Revolution in the wine cellar

Today, vinification in these small oak barrels, also known as barrique, is normal in Germany’s wine cellars. Some wineries have hundreds of those barriques of totally different origin in their cellars. Most of the wine producers have developed a sure instinct. This used to be different when, in October 1986, a small group of wine-growers from Wurttemberg started to deal intensively with vinification in barriques.

The name “Hades” was put together out of the first letters of the wineries Fürst zu Hohenlohe, Öhringen, Graf Adelmann, Kleinbottwar, Drautz-Able, Heilbronn, Jürgen Ellwanger, Winterbach and the „Sonnenhof“ of the Fischer family. The state winery of Weinsberg participated as well. The late Rainer Zierock, who stemmed from Wurttemberg and who had worked at that time as a teacher at the Trentino School of Viticulture, was the motor of the group, whose subtitle is “study group new oak barrel”.

Mr. Zierock was a passionate advocate of the new oak barrel, which - during the 1980ies - slowly entered Germany’s wineries, and whose results bothered - above all - official wine tasters. At that time, many wines were rejected as “untypical” or “woody” and had to be sold as table wines. The Hades group’s first wines had to cope with the same problem. The Swabian vintners were not irritated but decided instead to continue their way unswervingly, and from then on, they generally called their wines from the small barriques “table wines”.

Their aim was, above all, to produce red wines that are competitive on the international market. That’s why they did study trips to Bordeaux, to Burgundy and to Italy, followed by common purchases of vines like chardonnay, merlot, cabernet, which were only allowed for cultivation trials - if at all, and which were cultivated at small scale – partially even illegally. Soon, they dared to produce cuvees, which used to be called “Verschnitt” (blend) in Germany and did not really have the best reputation.

Moreover, the wines vinified by the Hades group in the new barrels tasted rather strange; so, the vintners learnt what wines are not suitable for barriques like, for instance, unenriched muscatel with 80 degrees Oechsle, a riesling with only 11 “Volt” of alcohol, a light red schiller wine and a rotling as well as a pinot noir which was left in the new barrique for 36 months – but the wine did not survive that.

One of the vintners had had similar experiences before. By special request of Vincent Klink, a top cook, Jürgen Ellwanger vinified a light ruländer out of those lousy 1984 grapes. Later, Vincent Klink said: “I managed to sell wood in bottles.”

The first initiatives of the Hades vintners were observed critically by the media and wine experts. They only gave few encouraging comments. The name seemed to be right: In Greek mythology, hades is the name of the god of the dead and the world of the dead. Critics predicted that the Hades group’s death knell would be tolling soon, and they said what they were doing was a crime against the wine. “We had a different point of view”, Michael Graf Adelmann remembers. “In fact, we worked in the underworld, but in the course of time, we could provoke a revolution in the wine cellar.”

Soon, Hades wines were successful in competitions, the group received different awards. The whole branch changed its mind. The Hades group became the germ cell of the German Barrique Forum that wineries and vintners’ associations joined together to in 1990. Nowadays, no ambitious winery that wants to be successful can afford any longer to vinify its red wines without using the new wood. Oak barriques are as well often used for the vinification of white wines (in particular white Burgundy wines).

A presentation at a jubilee day at the Forest and Palace Hotel Friedrichsruhe (where the first official presentation took place in 1987), showed that some of the wines are surprisingly stable. A white 2001 “Jokokus” from Drautz-Abele presented itself very youthful, and so did a 1993 Lemberger table wine from Adelmann (though it contains only 11.5 degrees of alcohol). The 1997 pinot gris from Ellwanger presented itself vitally. A 1988 Kerner from the “Sonnenhof” had been kept alive by a considerably acidity.

Actually, the jubilee would have been in October, 2011, but in the middle of or short after the harvest, they didn’t want to take a risk. So, the 25th anniversary was celebrated some time later with a delicious menu from Boris Benecke, a starred cook. Paula Bosch, a former Tantris sommelier, who was born in Riedlingen, Swabia, hosted the evening. The menu was – with one exception (“Vignette”, a red 1989 cuvee from Adelmann) – accompanied by younger Hades wines, which have long since ceased to be labeled as table wines, and which are no longer a source of concern for wine tasters.

The young generation shows that the predecessors are no longer on the top of the wineries. Markus Drautz is responsible for the vinification at the Drautz-Abel winery, in the Ellwanger winery, the sons Felix, Andreas and Jörg are responsible. At the Fürst Hohenlohe winery, Joachim Brand replaced Siegfried Röll, the senior manager, in the “Sonnenhof”, Albrecht Fischer was succeeded sons Martin and Joachim. And prince Adelmann represented his father Michael Graf Adelmann. (r.knoll)