The Horse Farm, the Landscape Architect & the Chamber Music of German Pinot
Two Germans who met as flatmates in Meursault, spent a decade at Burgundy's greatest domaines, and returned to a horse farm in the Black Forest to prove that Baden can make Spätburgunder of world-class finesse — Christoph Wolber and Alexander Götze make ultra-fine, low-intervention wines from old vines that the cooperatives abandoned because they were too steep to tractor.
Origin — From Flatmates in Meursault to Partners in Baden
Christoph Wolber grew up in Staufen im Breisgau, in the Black Forest of Baden, on a family farm called Wasenhaus — Wasen means meadow in the local dialect, Haus is house. It was never a winery. His mother kept horses there. Christoph studied agriculture and decided that viticulture was the most exciting form of farming. A bottle of Bernard van Berg was so compelling that he jumped on his motorcycle and rode east to Burgundy.
Alexander Götze was born near Dresden and came to wine through landscape architecture. He needed a student job, found one at a winery, and discovered he preferred vines to drafting tables. But the conventional vineyard used weed killers and fertilisers, and Alex hated it. He moved to Montalcino to work at Pian dell'Orino — organic, biodynamic, and passionate — and was smitten. From there, he emailed Pierre Morey in Meursault, landed an apprenticeship, and enrolled in the flexible study programme in Beaune.
The two met by chance. Alex was living in an old ex-hotel room in Meursault when a German lady in town told him a new German guy needed a room. Christoph moved in. They became flatmates, then friends, then collaborators. Christoph worked at Bernard van Berg, Leflaive, Domaine de la Vougeraie and Comte Armand. Alex worked at Pierre Morey and then became chef de culture at Domaine de Montille — a position he held until 2021. Between them, they accumulated nearly a decade of experience at Burgundy's most respected biodynamic estates.
In 2016, Christoph returned to Baden and proposed a trial: one Pinot, one Weissburgunder, made together from the plots he could find. The result was good enough for a second vintage. They sold out the first before it was even bottled. By 2018, they were a serious project. By 2021, Alex had moved back to Germany full-time. Wasenhaus was no longer an experiment. It was a winery.
The Place — Where the Black Forest Meets the Vosges
Baden sits in the Rhine Graben, a valley that separates Germany's Black Forest from France's Vosges mountains, directly across the river from Alsace. It is Germany's warmest wine region, with a patchwork of soils — granite, volcanic, limestone, and loess — on a scale larger than Alsace but equally complex. Wasenhaus is in the southernmost Bereich, the Markgräflerland, just 25 minutes south of Freiburg.
Limestone Clay — The Pinot Home
The majority of Wasenhaus vineyards sit on limestone clay soils in the Markgräflerland pre-hills — sandy, yellowish, sometimes Jurassic, occasionally iron-red. This is the classic home of Spätburgunder and Chardonnay in Baden: chalky bite, tension, depth. The Bellen, Filzen, Kanzel and Möhlin parcels all sit here.
Volcanic Rock — The Kaiserstuhl
The Kaiserstuhl is an ancient volcanic mountain range between the Black Forest and the Vosges. Where volcanic rock breaks through the loess, it leaves dark, grey, sandy soil that looks almost like ash — no clay, purely sandy. Wasenhaus farms parcels in Eichstetten and Jechtingen for their Vulkan bottling.
Loess — The Glacial Dust
Loess is a fine, mineral-rich, wind-deposited silt left by glaciers grinding down rock during the ice ages. It covers many hillsides in Baden, creating deep, structured soil that stores water and nutrients perfectly. Wasenhaus uses loess parcels for their entry-level wines — fruity, floral, approachable.
The Vineyards the Cooperatives Abandoned
Baden is dominated by cooperatives that represent roughly 80% of production. They rely on tractors, chemicals, and high yields. When a vineyard is too steep, too low-yielding, or too hard to machine-harvest, they abandon it. Alex and Christoph seek out these exact parcels — steeper slopes, better orientation, older vines. "It's all manual work, but they're the best vineyards in the region."
Winemaking — The Old Screw Press and the Turbid Must
The Wasenhaus cellar is a deliberate synthesis of Burgundian technique and Baden material. All grapes are hand-harvested. The whites are whole-cluster pressed in an old screw press — a mechanical press with chains that grind skins and stems, producing a turbid must heavy with solids. "Even if we had the money to buy a new press, we wouldn't," Alex says. These thick sediments are added back to the barrels, creating a reductive environment and giving the yeasts a kind of superfood. Natural fermentations proceed without problem, and sulfur can stay minimal — generally not above 40ppm.
The reds are fermented in open-top vats with soft extraction — very few punch-downs, only occasional cap movement by hand. Whole-cluster inclusion varies by vineyard and vintage; German clones often have large, green stems, so destemming is sometimes necessary. Aging is in neutral French oak barrels of varying sizes. The wines are unfined and unfiltered. Sulfur is added only after malolactic fermentation, never before — a theory Alex developed at Montille: earlier additions can harden tannins and subordinate the wine's best moments to an overbearing structure.
The farming is organic with biodynamic elements, though they are certified in neither. "Little by little you start to see the vines find their balance again," Alex says. "They become less vigorous; it just takes time." The soil, however, still carries the chemical legacy of previous farmers. "Soil can eat a lot of shit quickly, but it takes a very long time for it to go away again."
The Wines — From Landwein to Single Vineyard
All Wasenhaus wines are bottled as Landwein — German table wine — because German labelling laws prevent them from using village or vineyard names on the bottle. So they have invented their own hierarchy: varietal wines at the base, soil-level wines in the middle, and single-vineyard bottlings at the top.
Spätburgunder
Estate redThe entry-level Pinot — from younger vines across limestone and loess parcels. Lifted, charming, and serious. Red berry, fine tannins, and a Burgundian sensibility that makes you check the label twice. Soft extraction, neutral oak, minimal sulfur.
Spätburgunder Kalk
Soil-level red — limestoneSourced largely from 40-year-old vines in Ebringen on limestone soils — the counterpoint to Vulkan. Chalky, tense, and mineral. This is where Spätburgunder shows its Burgundian potential: not heavy, not sweet, but linear and precise.
Spätburgunder Vulkan
Soil-level red — volcanicFrom the Kaiserstuhl — volcanic soils in Eichstetten and Jechtingen. Darker, richer, and more powerful than the Kalk, with a smoky undertone and sun-soaked fruit. The volcanic heat gives this wine a generosity that the limestone wines withhold.
Spätburgunder Bellen
Single-vineyard redFrom between Kirchhofen and Pfaffenweiler — limestone and clay, steep, worked entirely by hand. One of the finest wines in the range. "It would be difficult to place anywhere other than Burgundy," says one critic. Silky, complex, and age-worthy.
Weissburgunder
Estate white100% Pinot Blanc — whole-cluster pressed in the old screw press, fermented and aged in neutral barrels. Textural, saline, and revelatory. "While the Pinot Noirs are showstoppers, the Weissburgunders are revelatory," says one importer. Almond, white flowers, and crushed stone.
Chardonnay Filzen
Single-vineyard whiteFrom the steep, limestone-rich Filzen vineyard in Kirchhofen — a very cool parcel that was Wasenhaus's original Chardonnay site. Whole-cluster pressed, raised in neutral wood. Citrus, chalk, and a tension that speaks of the slope. Their most complete white.
Legacy — The Cooperatives' Rejects, Germany's Treasures
Wasenhaus matters because it proved that German Pinot Noir does not have to be heavy. In a region where cooperatives dominate and Spätburgunder is often synonymous with over-extracted, over-oaked, high-alcohol wine, Christoph and Alex have made something light, transparent, and Burgundian — without pretending to be Burgundy. "Our wine can't be like Burgundy — it simply can't," Alex says. "But it's an honour to sometimes see our wines alongside great Burgundy and watch them hold their own."
Their legacy is also agricultural. By taking on the steep, low-yielding, tractor-unfriendly vineyards that cooperatives abandoned, they have preserved parcels that would otherwise have been left to scrub or development. From 0.5 hectares in 2016 to roughly 5 hectares today — owned and sourced — they have built a map of Baden's best sites without ever owning a grand cru. The Bellen, Filzen, Kanzel and Möhlin parcels are now recognised as among the finest in the Markgräflerland, not because they were always famous, but because two stubborn Germans refused to let them disappear.
Through their old screw press, their turbid must, their refusal to fine or filter, and their minimal sulfur regime, Wasenhaus has also created a template for low-intervention German wine that is neither funky nor unstable. The natural yeast fermentations are reliable. The wines are clean. And the elegance is unmistakable. "If you stop, you're dead," Alex says. But Wasenhaus has not stopped. It has only just begun.