Marie Menger-Krug – Winemaker at Motzenbäcker

Since 1758, family Menger-Krug is growing quality wine with passion. Expert knowledge, intuition and passion are passed down from generation to generation to make outstanding wines. Four generations are working and living together at the wine estate Krug´scher Hof and Motzenbäcker. Every single generation has their specialist fields and gives new ideas to the wine.

The vineyards, which gently nestle into the landscape, are gilded and glowed by the September sundown. In the middle of this splendid scenery stands a beautiful Florentine style palace, the ‘Villa in Paradise’. There, in Deidesheim in the Palatinate, you will find the Motzenbäcker Sparkling Wine Manufactory, one of the best addresses in Germany. This is thanks on the one hand to the tradition that has been carefully cultivated here since the 18th century and on the other hand to the enthusiasm of Marie Menger-Krug.

Just at the entrance of the impressive cellar there stands the large moon oak barrels, the wood for them is lumbered after the first full moon, it is more durable and harder than conventional barrel wood. Marie Menger-Krug observes nature very closely, lives with it, learns from it. These barrels contain the very best wine, Chardonnay and Riesling. Only the best grapes find their way into these exclusive barrels, where they are allowed to ripen for 11 months, mostly on the first yeast and naturally fermented spontaneously, this is the secret, this is the key to success!

The winemaker likes to work with the wood, the Red Wine barrique degustation is a special challenge, on a longer distance each barrel is tested and tasted individually! Every year the winemaker has to develop a new feeling for her sparkling wines. The weather, wood, grapes, everything is in movement, everything changes, a constant cycle.
In keeping with the tradition, Marie Menger-Krug cools the cellar with water, samples are taken daily to monitor the development of her ‘cellar-kids’, this is how she tenderly calls the barrels. The fermentation behaviour is difficult, astonishingly, some barrels behave quite differently than their neighbour, a secret science!

She works with the Méthode Rurale, a traditional process in which the very best grapes are first harvested, the soul of the sparkling wine! The grapes are then fermented with Champagne yeasts in the tank when they finally have the right amount of residual sugar. Once the correct pressure is built up in the bottle, they are filled from the yeast down to the sparkling wine. So the route does not go via wine, but directly to sparkling wine.