terroir f Rödelsee: in the name of Silvaner
Terroir f designates a total of 21 vantage points and landmarks in Franconian vineyards, which are also informative. Motto: You know what you're looking at. Each of the ‘terroir f’ sites has a very different design.
Rödelsee, a village with barely 1800 inhabitants at the foot of the Schwanberg, is known to wine lovers for its memorable "Küchenmeister" site. The highlight is ‘terroir f’, a huge walk-in cylinder high above the vineyards that looks like a telescope on stilts. From afar, you could almost think a futuristic spaceship from distant worlds had landed there. The view is drawn to the vineyards. Inside, information boards tell you everything about the Silvaner grape variety, which was first cultivated in Germany more than 350 years ago in Castell, and of course also characterises the wines of Rödelsee. Silvaner is the Franconian wine par excellence; it masters appealingly fresh everyday wines as well as powerful "Große Gewächse" (Grand Cru) with complexity, i.e. the full range of qualities. It owes its special and typical Franconian character to the Franconian terroir with its Keuper terrain. These soil formations, which were created around 180 million years ago, can also be found in the two premium neighbouring vineyards of Rödelsee: Küchenmeister and Schwanleite. The Schwanberg and the Schwanleite vineyard probably owe their name to the Celtic goddess Svana, whose shrine was located on the mountain. Others think the name comes from a Franconian knight named Swanilo. Either way, the "Rödelseer Tube" (as some enthusiasts disparagingly call it) is a good place to take a rest and, ideally, open a cool bottle of Rödelseer Silvaner that you have brought with you. Cheers, Svana! Meanwhile, the view sweeps over the sea of Franconian vines with the Schwanleite and Küchenmeister vineyards over to Kitzingen on the Main River. Not far away, incidentally, is the equally famous prestigious vineyard Julius-Echter-Berg, which belongs to the neighbouring municipality of Iphofen.
