Solveigs — The Pinot Specialist from the Rheingau
Solveigs is an estate with a clear mission: only Pinot Noir. Nothing else. Since 1995 founder Jens Heinemeyer — trained oenologist — together with his wife Gaby and a small team has focused on this one grape that demands everything: patience, experience, minimal intervention, and an eye for what soil and vines can produce without help.
The estate is named after the daughter of the house. It has deliberately remained small — two hectares on the slate slopes between Assmannshausen and Lorch, one of Germany's most exciting Pinot Noir terroirs.
The Vineyards — Slate, Steep Slopes, Silence
The vineyards of Solveigs lie in the historic Grosslage Steil near Assmannshausen — in the small parcels of Mickeberg and Presenteberg. Slate slopes so steep they can only be worked on foot. Soils of red slate, phyllite, and quartzite that give the wines their characteristic smoky depth and minerality.
The vines are old — up to 40 years in places. Yields are deliberately low. Every grape is the result of hand-work on slopes too steep for modern viticultural machinery.
"Lazy Vinification" — Minimalism as Precision
Solveigs sometimes describes their own approach in the cellar as "lazy vinification" — but that's an understatement. Behind the apparent minimalism lies enormous precision: spontaneous fermentation with the grapes' own yeasts, long barrel ageing of up to 28 months in mostly used barriques, bottling without filtration, then up to 24 months of bottle ageing before release.
The result is Pinot Noirs that deliberately refuse to adapt to the "international" style. They are smoky, mineral, deep — shaped by the red slate of the Rheingau. Burgundy-inspired, but no Burgundy copy. They need time. And they reward patience like almost no other German Pinot.
The Wines in Our Selection
At Wein & Nielsen we carry the complete main line of Solveigs wines: PHYLLIT as an elegant entry point with the typical smokiness of red slate, STEIL from the Grosslage of the same name near Assmannshausen, MICKE from the Mickeberg — in three versions including the single-block bottlings "Block 6" and "Block 25", PRESENT as the flagship wine from the Presenteberg — and as something special BRUT vom STEIL, a Blanc de Noirs Brut Nature made from Pinot grapes from the STEIL vineyard.
World-Class — Under the Radar
Solveigs is one of the quietest stars of German winemaking. While the estate remains largely unknown in Germany, the wines have long been a cult favourite in Scandinavia — and have reached the very top with the most important international wine critics.
Stephan Reinhardt recently tasted an entire range of vintages going back to the founding year 1995 for Robert Parker's Wine Advocate — and drew comparisons rarely read for German Pinot Noirs. Ulrich Sautter describes Solveigs in the Falstaff Weinguide Deutschland as "one of the rare cases where something great is happening in the shadow of attention" — as "mineral monuments" of a low-intervention philosophy that sets international standards.
That vintages from the late 1990s are still in top form today says more about this estate than any point score ever could.
A Personal Connection
Whoever visits Jens and Gaby in their seven-metre-deep vaulted cellar understands immediately why these wines are the way they are: with patience, dedication, and an uncompromising eye for quality.
Our Selection — Direct from the Estate
At Wein & Nielsen we carry several vintages from Solveigs direct from the estate. Bio-certified, hand-selected, ex-winery prices. Wines in very limited quantities — because with a production of around 6,000 bottles per year, Solveigs shares itself with the whole world. Lucky for us we're part of it.
