The Ahr growing region, famous for its Pinot Noir, is around 560 hectares in size, and in a normal year the winemakers harvest around four million liters of wine in the 40 individual sites.

It is doubtful whether this will also succeed this year.

Because many wineries have been destroyed.

Cellars were flooded, barrels washed away, agricultural implements destroyed.

The managing director of the Weinbauverband Ahr, Knut Schubert, estimates the damage to stored wine alone at up to 50 million euros.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis and for Wiesbaden.

  • Follow I follow

In the first days after the catastrophe, numerous winegrowers from the Rheingau were already in the Ahr Valley to support their colleagues.

The managing director of Rheingauer Weinwerbung, Andrea Engelmann, was also there, and she reported afterwards about “destruction, bewilderment and chaos”.

Together with Rheingau winegrowers, Engelmann helped to remove sludge from cellars and buildings.

This help should be continued in the next few weeks until the harvest, in order to be able to bring in the upcoming harvest at all.

But in many places there is still no electricity or water.

Many winegrowers from other growing areas came with forklifts, tractors and pumps to save what can still be saved, according to the German Wine Institute.

Also sponsorships between wine producers have started.

The willingness to help among the winemakers is huge, reports the President of the German Viticulture Association, Klaus Schneider.

How dramatic the situation is can also be seen in a situation report by the Ahr top producer Meyer-Näkel: “The flood almost completely destroyed our winery.

Our vinotheque and the old wine cellar with treasure chamber as well as the office were completely flooded and buried under masses of mud.

The tidal wave destroyed the cellar

The production, the barrique and tank farm, the machine hall and the bottle store were hit by the six meter high tidal wave. Meyer-Näkel belongs to the Association of German Pradikätsweingüter, which has initiated a large fundraising campaign under the motto “The Eagle Helps”. Joint campaigns for vineyard care are also currently being coordinated. It cannot be ruled out that part of the harvest has to be processed in other growing areas. Ahr itself wants to have a kind of "benefit wine" bottled in large numbers, with which every wine drinker can make a contribution to the reconstruction of the region.


Those who cannot go directly to the region to help do so in a different way. Dirk Würtz, for many years the manager of a Rheingau winery and now managing director of a producer in the Rhine-Hesse region, has started a large-scale relief campaign “SOLIDA (H) RITÄT”. His appeal to his colleagues in Germany and Austria to donate 60 or more bottles of a good drop in order to then offer them in a mix as surprise packages for sale exceeded all expectations. After 10,000 of these solidarity packages had been ordered within a short time at a price of 65 euros, the campaign was stopped for the time being in order to be able to process the orders.

The Hessian State Wine Estates are offering a donation package for flooding, which includes three summer wines as well as two tickets for the current Playmobil exhibition in the monastery. And whoever drinks a pint at the Kaufmann winery at the Hattenheimer wine tasting stand in the next week will trigger a donation of 50 cents for the Ahr winegrowers with each glass.