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Dr. H. Thanisch
Website: https://www.thanisch-vdp.de/en/
The Thanisch family have been making wine for over 375 years, and many generations during those years have been spent making white wines in the Mosel Valley. However, it was in the mid-19th century that the company truly burst onto the international scene under the eponymous ownership of Dr. Hugo Thanisch. From this point on the estate's wines became some of the most sought after Rieslings in the world. In fact, in 1986 a 1921 Bernkasteler Doctor Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese achieved an incredible sale price of nearly £13,000!
However Hugo is not the only doctor this estate can boast of - the vineyards themselves hold an honorary doctorate! The tale goes thus: struck with an incurable illness, a nobleman of Trier - a city on the banks of the Mosel - publicly announced that anybody who could find a cure for his disease would be rewarded with unimaginable riches. Doctors, pharmacists and healers all lined up at the sick bed - to no avail.
But just when the ailing fellow's fate seemed sealed a local man came along and handed him a cup of wine. Sceptically and without much hope the ill man drained the wine. Lo and behold, a few days later, the patient fully recovered!
Asked to name his reward the wine bringer said: "All I ask is that you bestow upon my wine, which only grows on the mountains of Bernkastel, a proper doctor's degree - as it is the true doctor." The recovered nobleman consented and issued an official doctor's degree to the growing site. To this day, the vineyard bears the name "Bernkasteler Doctor"
Now under the watchful eye of talented young winemaker Maximilian F. W. Ferger, the estate continues to harvest and hand craft wines of great quality and individuality, with sustainability and ecologically friendly practices a core part of the Dr. H. Thanisch philosophy.
