‘The wine that freed 10,000 POWs’: Wegeler to auction bottle of the historic Bernkasteler Doctor 1953
An exceptional vintage, a legendary vineyard, and a chapter of post-war German history combine to make the 1953 Bernkasteler Doctor Riesling Spätlese something of a time capsule.
Founded in 1882, the Wegeler Estates are deeply intertwined with the history of Riesling in both the Rheingau and the Mosel. From the very beginning, the estate has been synonymous with wines of outstanding elegance, linear precision, and remarkable longevity.
In 1900, Julius Wegeler acquired a parcel of 1.1 hectares of the Bernkasteler Doctor — at the time the most expensive vineyard in the world. He built Germany’s first gravity-flow winery to vinify its precious fruit. Today, the estate cultivates 45 hectares of top sites in the Rheingau and 12 hectares of the Mosel’s steepest vineyards, with the Bernkasteler Doctor still at its very heart.
In the estate’s historic cellar, five perfectly preserved bottles of Riesling from the Bernkasteler Doctor vineyard have come to light. They are from the 1953 vintage, hailed as one of the greatest Riesling years of the 20th century. The Spätlesen from this remarkable harvest are renowned for their poise, delicate fruit, and extraordinary capacity to age.
One of the bottles was opened by co-owner Ralf Frenzel and tasted with a selected group of experts, confirming the wine’s remarkable vitality and quality. The true surprise, however, came from historical research. Renowned German wine historian Dr. Daniel Deckers, editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, uncovered archival evidence that this was the very wine chosen by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer for a highly sensitive diplomatic meeting.
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On 11 September 1955, ten years after the end of the Second World War, the 1953 Bernkasteler Doctor was served in Moscow at the lunch which concluded Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s historic meeting with Soviet leaders Nikolai Bulganin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Vyacheslav Molotov. Adenauer, 80 years old at the time, had flown to Moscow to negotiate the agreement that would secure the release of the last 10,000 German prisoners of war from Soviet camps.
Seventy years later, one of these rare bottles will be auctioned at the RR Auction on 20 September, in Boston. The winning bidder will acquire not only an extraordinary piece of wine history but also the opportunity to taste the very same wine poured at that historic table seventy years ago. To recreate the moment, one might even pair it with the original menu: Holstein smoked ham, stuffed saddle of venison with juniper sauce, and Black Forest cherry pudding.
Full details of the lot can be found here.
I was lucky enough to taste the 2023 Bernkasteler Doctor Riesling GG Trocken Grosse Lage, from the most recent release from this still iconic vineyard. Here is my tasting note.
Weingüter Wegeler Bernkasteler Doctor GG Trocken Grosse Lage 2023 (100% Riesling; 12.5% alcohol). Sadly, I won’t be here to taste this in 70 years’ time, but this extraordinary wine certainly has that kind of aging potential. That said, it’s already staggeringly impressive. Sparking in its crystalline brilliance and searingly pure, zingy and racy, this is an incredibly intense and vibrant wine that almost pulses with raw energy as it dances on the palate. Slatey in its minerality, vertiginous in its sense of lift and chiselled in its purity this is liquid terroir of the highest quality! 97.
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The 1949 Doctor Auslese from Wegeler was still impressive in 2010.