Family & Team

Startseite 9 Winery 9 Family & Team

Family & Team

Peter, Lisa, Hans-Christoph and Claudia Stolleis

 

For twelve generations, we Stolleis’ have dedicated ourselves to viticulture and pursue this tradition with great passion. Our vines grow in top locations of the Palatinate, on soils that in their unique composition have stood for centuries for the origin of wines of outstanding quality. Authentic wines, created in vineyards that are tended with much manual labor and passion by our family & a great team.

In the 2nd half of the 17th century our ancestors migrated from Switzerland to the Palatinate. Here the sovereigns had recruited settlers after the 30-year war and brought them into the country. At the very beginning they were quarry owners, but early on they discovered their love of wine and viticulture. In 1668, the first vineyard was acquired and so for 12 generations now, all Stolleis’ have been closely connected to wine.

In 1863 Peter Stolleis then founded the eponymous winery. At the beginning of the 20th century, Heinrich Stolleis moved the winery to the Carl-Theodor-Hof, the former tithe farm of Elector Carl-Theodor, who first ruled the Palatinate and later Bavaria as the Wittelsberg Elector. Carl-Theodor has been on the labels ever since.

Peter took over the business from his father, Dr. Erich Stolleis (seen as a young boy in the picture below), in 1980, which at that time also included a small winery with grape purchases from colleagues in the surrounding towns. Together with his wife Claudia, he focused the business on quality bottled wine production and experimented with sauvignon blanc and auxerrois as early as the 1990s. After forty years, both have passed on the business to Hans-Christoph in the summer of 2021. After studying business administration in Göttingen and viticulture in Geisenheim, he returned to Gimmeldingen in 2020 after a semester abroad in Stellenbosch. His viticultural background was shaped by his stations with vintages at Pfaffl (Austria), Elephant Hill (New Zealand), Bürklin-Wolf, Salwey and Rings. His sister Lisa studies and lives in Berlin and supports important events in Gimmeldingen.

We have trusted people who enrich our winery with their work. On behalf of the entire team, we would like to introduce these four:

Markus Weidmann has given his heart to the vines. He passes the vines two dozen times over the course of a year and therefor has a special relationship with each vine. His work starts in December with pruning. This work, come rain or shine, lasts until the end of February. If the vegetation starts in April/May, he sometimes has to be on several fronts at the same time. It only gets a little more quiet for him after the grape harvest in October.

Florian Haas has been part of our team since summer 2017! After a dual degree in “Viticulture and Oenology” and internships at renowned companies in Germany and abroad, he brings a lot of experience and enthusiasm for his job as a cellar master. He helps decide which vineyards are harvested and when. Because healthy grapes are the first step towards natural wines with a strong character. In the press house and cellar, he monitors the fermentation of the must and the development of the young wines until they are bottled.

Jana Thüning is your first point of contact in the office and in wine sales. She has been strengthening our team since autumn 2021 and is a great asset! As a graduate of the dual course “Viticulture and Oenology” with internships at Bürklin-Wolf, Pflüger and Sven Leiner, she is familiar with both the work in the vineyard & familiar with cellar work, but also knows good recommendations for the wine to accompany your next meal and will happily advise you by phone, e-mail or in our vinotheque.

Doris Loos is responsible for our accounting. Do you have questions about your bill? Then Doris Loos is your first point of contact.

The precise selection of perfectly ripe grapes is only possible with a well-rehearsed and motivated team: some live just nearby and have worked with us for over ten years during harvest, others have worked for us for a few weeks between school and university, come from Romania or are new neighbors from Kharkiv.