Johann Friedrich Deinhard founded his wine and sparkling wine business in Koblenz in 1794 and after just a few years, he was one of the leading companies in his sector. In the middle of the 19th century, his descendants also began to grow wine on the Moselle in Bernkastel and to produce the base wines for the now famous Riesling sparkling wines themselves.
The Deinhard sparkling wine house enjoyed an international reputation and its sparkling wines and wines could not be missed on any menu, especially in England, the USA and Canada. In the young Federal Republic of Germany, Deinhard sparkling wine was considered a prestige product in comparison to other brands and was served on all official occasions. DEINHARD's sparkling wines were a must on every drinks menu. The advertising campaigns for the best-known brand - DEINHARD LILA - on radio and television into the 1990s are unforgettable.
The company was finally sold at the end of the 1990s, but the wineries on the Moselle and in the Rheingau continued to exist. The traditional Deinhard brand, which has been at home in Bernkastel with its vineyards for more than 150 years, provided the name impetus for the new area created in the centre of the old town.
The current concept of DEINHARD's has evolved and grown over time.
History of the historic building, DEINHARD's, Gestade 12
In the 17th century, the German imperial territories were plundered and destroyed in such a devastating manner by some European neighbours that over two thirds of the population did not survive this period, including the Moselle valley of Bernkastel, which belonged to the Electorate of Trier and only slowly recovered after 10 years of terror by the French and plundering by the Swedes. The electors did their best to promote the regeneration of the fallow vineyards and agriculture and rebuilt destroyed public buildings.
Elector Karl Kaspar von der Leyen (1618 - 1676) organised a reorganisation of tax revenue for his realm in order to finance urgently needed investments in the destroyed infrastructure. As the monetary system did not exist in rural areas, farmers, winegrowers and craftsmen paid mainly in "kind", i.e. in the fruits of their labour. Suitable large-scale premises were therefore needed to collect the taxes.
Between 1658 and 1661, he had a very large ensemble of buildings built in Bernkastel am Gestade, solidly constructed from slate with sandstone walls in the Renaissance style. This architectural style, orientated towards classical antiquity, favoured strict straight lines and, as it was a professional building, no decoration of any kind was used. Until its destruction by British bombers a few days before the end of the Second World War - as part of the systematic destruction of German cultural monuments - the main building on the Moselle was to remain the largest house in the city and a defining feature of the image from the Moselle.
In the main building with its beautiful view of the river, the village of Kues and the Moselle valley, the Elector had a flat furnished for his stays in Bernkastel, a second flat for the tax collector, who at the time was known as the bailiff and had the job title of waiter. In addition, there was a chapel where the elector could say mass in the morning, a kitchen, storerooms, ...
In the rear rooms there are spacious wine cellars to store the tax wine, above them threshing floors for grain and corn, rooms for handicrafts, stables for poultry, ... plus 4 large coach houses and horse stables with elaborate round arches made of heavy sandstone blocks. All in all, a magnificent building, a representation of electoral architecture and power.
The building survived the renewed siege of the city by the French just a few years later (1673) and the final capture of the city in 1688 largely unscathed, because the commanders of the invaders had set up their quarters there, while all the other stone houses, the towers and city walls as well as the palace castle - the summer residence of the electors - were blown up and destroyed on the orders of King Louis XIV.
In the decades that followed, the building stood largely empty and the completely impoverished population was largely useless as tax subjects. The ongoing raids by French troops prevented an economic recovery and led to a strong wave of emigration, preferably to the areas of Banat and Transylvania, which are now on Romanian soil, and to North America, Brazil and Argentina.
The renewed invasion of the French army under Napoleon brought an end to the Electorate of Trier (around 1800). Napoleon expropriated the church and sold its buildings and goods to private individuals in order to fill his war chest with the money. This was also the case with the wheelhouse in Bernkastel, where 3 families each bought a part and used the building for living, working and storage.
After Napoleon's defeat, the Congress of Vienna placed all western territories on the left bank of the Rhine, such as Lorraine, the Moselle with Hunsrück and Eifel and today's Benelux states, under the control of the Kingdom of Prussia with the restitution of the empire. The Elector's tax building remained private property until its destruction in 1945, when the ruins passed into the hands of the municipality. With the help of a cultural fund financed by American foundations, the building was restored and refurbished as a viticultural school with large classrooms and teachers' flats.
Following the relocation of the school to new, more modern buildings and years of vacancy, it was completely renovated between 2017 and 2020 and, together with 3 other neighbouring buildings, today's DEINHARD's was created.
