weingut georg fritz von nell

A tour around wine yard lead by the owner, with some history of the family, wine yard and the region, a bit wine making explanations, a few glimpses into future, all of this spiced with a joke or two - makes an interesting story to listen. Tasting of 5 excellent white wines on the way makes it more engaging too. All of that costing only 10 euro per person sounds rather symbolic fee.

We bought a 10 euro per person wine tasting ticket at the Trier Tourist Info booth for a 5 pm tasting. The van picked us up outside the information center and delivered us to the winery which is close to town. The owner gave us a tour and tasting in English and German. The visit far exceeded our expectations! It was informative and fun. The wine was good too.

We used the motorhome stellplatz for a two night stay. Previously we had used the large motorhome parking near the park and ride but this was so much nicer and very peaceful. An easy walk into town with regular buses too. We partook of the wine tasting and a meal on the second night but missed out on the tour due to a bit of a communication breakdown. The wine was fabulous and the guide very informative and friendly - accomodating our lack of German well. The meal was wonderful - we had potato soup with home smoked fish and it was faboulous, followed by the speciallty pork. The cost of the wine tasting is around 10E per head, the meal around 20E for two course plus coffee and the motorhome camp 10E a night. All in all we spent 130E for two night stay, lovely meal for three and 2 bottles of Sek and 3 bottles of wine, pretty good when compared to an avverage campsite in UK!The hosts were so friendly too

It all started with Christoph Philipp Bernhard Hugo von Nell, descending from a wealthy family of wood floaters, who aquired in an auction the Benedictine estates included 2500 hectares of land which was dispossessed by Napoleon in 1803 for 190,000 Goldmark, then a huge sum (even today 9120 Euro!). The farmlands and ranged from the Pfalzel bridge to Lamberts Garten, included current Abbey St. Matthias with their farmlands, Schammat and Mariahof. The current seat of the winery was purchased in 1830, but before the family could move to location Tiergartental 117 years of repressed history had to pass by in which, due to numerous heirs, war and great depression, the estate was shrinking tremendously, in 1890, sometimes only 3 people in the huge house with beautiful wine cellar and stables with cross vaults. When in 1930 the Abbey was returned to the Benedictine order the family was forced move to the Mariahof estate in 1931, which they managed until 1947 when the French forcibly leased the estate. The city bought the estate with lands in 1959 for a symbolic price, other large areas owned by von Nell were already decades ago incorporated as military sites. When in 1947 the family finally moved to the Tiergartental location Monaise Castle already lay 3 years in ashes and ruins. Of the once 2500 hectares in von Nell’s ownership today only remains approximately 20 hectares, but war took its toll: vineyards in ruins, bomb craters everywhere, poles scorched: it took many years to rebuild the lot, 1958 takeover by Georg Fritz, the stables were converted into winehouse. Silvester’s Eve 1979 all vines in Tiergartental were frozen off. von Nell has vineyards in Trier in full ownership: Benediktinerberg, Thiergarten Felsköpfchen, Thiergarten unterm Kreuz, Kurfürstenhofberg. The remaining vineyards are situated on the Saar with Ayler Kupp, on the Middle Moselle " Bernkasteler Graben", in the Olewiger Valley “Trierer Jesuitenwingert” and Trierer Burgberg, East of Trier the “St. Maximiner Kreuzberg”. Tips: you can buy tickets online (or buy at the tourism office) to visit this vineyard and cellar, including wine tasting (6 wines), but check out: some tickets are without transfer ans some are transfer included (same price tough): the ones transfer included are mostly the ones starting at 5 pm), in case transfer included the bus picks you up in trier centre and dropped off 1.5 hours later, or one can opt to stay longer and have a meal overthere.

Im Rahmen einer Klassenfahrt hatten wir als Programmpunkt am Samstad Abend die Besichtigung des Weinguts. Ich fand den Rundgang kurz aber gut. Das hatte für mich persönlich die richtige Länge. Die anschließende Verkostung im Restaurantbereich war auch sehr interessant. Das Steak vom Grill war lecker; besonders auch der Kartoffelauflauf nach einem eigenen alten Rezept war super. Frau von Nell hat das gut gemacht, nur hätte man sich bei der Weinprobe manchmal etwas mehr Wein gewünscht, was in der Prospektbeschreibung etwas positiver dargestellt war. Deshalb waren auch unsere Erwartungen etwas größer.