Nik Weis · St. Urbans-Hof

The estate was founded in 1947 by Nicolaus Weis, who named it after Saint Urban, the patron saint of winegrowers. But he founded two things at once: alongside the winery he set up a vine nursery, one of the first private ones in Germany, which to this day supplies Riesling plants to growers on the Mosel and around the world. This is a house that, as well as making wine, propagates the variety.

His son Hermann took over in the 1960s and in the early 1970s did something unusual for a Mosel grower: he went to Canada and planted a large area of Riesling there which he called St. Urban Vineyard. That eventually became the Vineland Estates winery. Today the house is run by Nik Weis, the third generation.

There are some forty-five hectares spread along about sixty kilometres of the Mosel and Saar rivers, with parcels in Piesporter Goldtröpfchen, Leiwener Laurentiuslay, Mehringer Layet, Schodener Saarfeilser Marienberg and Ockfener Bockstein.