Griesel & Compagnie

The German production reality Griesel & Compagnie specializes in the production of extraordinarily fresh Metodo Classico sparkling wines, made following the principle of minimal intervention. Located in Bensheim, a city situated in the area of Hessische Bergstraße, the smallest of the German wine regions, in 2013 Niko Brandner founded the winery together with Petra and Jürgen Streit, a couple of local industrialists who financed the project. In 2014, the three of them began to acquire and work vineyards located on the hills surrounding the city, while the Streits took over the Hessian State Domain as the vinification site. The name Griesel refers to the eponymous street where the winery is located, which in turn takes its name from the hill that rises above the city.

Within the 15 hectares of vineyards that make up the estate, Niko Brandner and Petra and Jürgen Streit of Griesel & Compagnie cultivate the Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier grape varieties for their sparkling wines. Agronomic management is based on sustainable practices, and the plants grow on granitic soils ideal for high-quality viticulture, often characterized by steep slopes that require entirely manual labor. The typical winemaking process involves gentle pressing of whole clusters, followed by spontaneous fermentation of the must in stainless steel tanks and wooden containers. The subsequent sparkling process, which follows the prolonged maturation of the sparkling wine bases on fine lees, takes place in the bottle according to the Metodo Classico, accompanied by long aging on the lees. In a low-intervention perspective, the wines are not subjected to clarification and filtration operations, and no additives or oenological aids are used, except for sulfites, which are always kept very low along with dosage.

The goal of Griesel & Compagnie estate is to offer sparkling wines with a strong and elegant personality, capable of expressing the crystalline and mineral purity of the granite terrain of Bergstraße.