Vineyard Size: 50 Hectares
Total Production: 29,166 cases
Farming: Organic
Certification: EU Certified (DE-ÖKO-039)
Grapes Planted (Red): Pinot noir
Grapes Planted (White): Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Solaris

Balthasar-Ress is a namesake of the founder of the winery Balthasar Ress, the fifth generation of the Ress family removed from today. Herr Ress was born to a family of butchers in 1843, and grew to become one of the top innkeepers in the Rheingau. The family managed both the hotel and the winery all the way until 1979. The winery itself was founded in 1870.

The winery has since grown to become one of the premier names in all of Germany. While success was ongoing, it was Christian's father Stefan that took B-R to a new level of recognition. He was instrumental in the winery becoming a stand alone business to the hotel, producing its first sparkling wine (1982), becoming a founding member of the CHARTA Organization of Wine Growers (1984), becoming a member of the prestigious VdP (1989), to becoming its chairman in 1993. He remained president until passing the title to Christian on his 65th birthday in 2010.

Christian has expanded the stylistic range of the winery, as well as looking to the future by planting vineyards on the extreme northern island of Sylt, Germany's northernmost vines! The winery is now certified Organic and is producing a growing number of styles, including a new focus on Spätburgunder, taking everything climate changes throws at them in stride.

As CEO, one of his first landmark decisions in 2010 is to stop using chemicals in the vineyards immediately. There is a switch to mechanical weed control instead of chemical. The term "weed" gradually disappeared from the team's vocabulary. Christian Ress is considering taking further steps, possibly in the direction of holistic, ecologically certified viticulture. Due to a lack of personal experience in organic viticulture, he changes the composition of the viticulture team and brings in employees with organic experience who deal with the topic calmly and after weighing up all the risks - including the economic ones. The elimination of glyphosate clearly shows that the new way of working comes at a price, namely higher production costs. In order to be able to work sustainably, you need sufficiently high profits: without profit there are no investments and therefore no future. And so Christian Ress and his team approached the topic plot by plot over several years, the resulting extra work, the costs involved, In 2016, the team felt finally prepared for the conversion of the entire operation from around 45 hectares at that time. No company of this size in the state of Hesse had previously dared to take on this task. The ecological management of the vineyards promotes a self-regulating ecosystem that does not require any chemical-synthetic substances such as toxic herbicides or pesticides. The major goal of organic viticulture is to build and maintain a balanced ecosystem through a cycle in the vineyard. “You can see whether a vineyard is being farmed organically or not. Organic vines have smaller leaves with a different structure. They are much rougher and thicker than leaves in conventional viticulture. Comparing the leaves, it feels like someone is eating healthy food or just eating fast food. The leaves are limp and very large, which is not typical for Riesling. Our leaves are very small because the vine has to work a lot harder to fight fungal diseases. She is much busier than when given an antibiotic comparatively. As a result, the vines naturally live longer and produce a much better quality.” Tim Knauer, Field Operations Manager at Balthasar Ress, is convinced of that.

In addition to the "Solaris" bottling produced from the hybrid grape Solaris on Sylt, Balthasar-Ress also produces another unorthodox wine called "RESSpekt." This Riesling is aged at the bottom of Lake Diez for 3 years. The stable underwater temperature and lack of sunlight produce the ideal aging conditions. A 26L bottle was auctioned off for charity in 2020!