German Winemakers’ Underwater Escape | Wine-Searcher News & Features

The extent of the devastation resulting from the July 14th flooding in Germany’s tiny Ahr Valley wine region is difficult to quantify.

Around 130 people are now confirmed dead in the region and 74 are still listed as missing. In places, floodwaters rose more than six meters (20 feet), 61 bridges across the river have been destroyed and portions of towns such as Ahrweiler and Mayschoss have been washed away.

There were immediate challenges to survive, there are short-term challenges to clean up and restore some kind of normality, and there are long-term challenges to restore the region’s infrastructure. In the midst of this, the Ahr’s 65 wineries need to harvest in two months’ time to enable them to secure their livelihoods.

The traumatic experiences of the Näkel sisters Meike and Dörte, from Weingut Meyer-Näkel, who were swept away by floodwaters, have been reported. But the details Wine-Searcher has learned of their adventures read like something from the plot of a 1970s disaster movie.

The sisters had gone to their winery, just outside town, to try and save equipment from the flood. Caught out by the rapid rise of the flood waters, they became trapped in the building. They originally tried to escape onto the roof but, when a large gas tank was washed into it, they realized they needed to get out quickly. This could only be achieved by diving into the flood waters, swimming beneath barrels floating in the cellars, and kicking out a window, through which they were washed by the floodwaters. Carried downstream they eventually found refuge in a tree just outside Dernau. There they stayed for seven hours before being rescued the next morning. Their mother believes the tree that became their refuge was one that had been planted by their grandfather.

Wine-Searcher spoke to Caro Maurer MW, a friend of the family, who spent Saturday at Weingut Meyer-Näkel helping to clean up. The plight of this winery is typical of many estates in the area They have lost their new winery with all its winemaking equipment, along with pretty much all the 2020 vintage, which had not yet been bottled.

They have lost most of their barrels – one was retrieved from the river by staff at the Adenauer winery in Ahrweiler almost four kilometers downstream. The family’s old winery in the center of Dernau had its ground floor and cellar flooded, and everything was covered in a thick beige sludge that needs cleaning from floors, walls, tiles and stocks of bottled wines. Claudia Näkel, the family matriarch, is still living above the old winery in the center of town, but there is no power – so she is cooking with a camping stove, using candles for lighting and there is no running water.

To make the clear-up even more difficult there have been no communications. Maurer told Wine-Searcher that in the first four days, before cellphone coverage was restored, Meike Näkel had spent much of her time driving between their sites to co-ordinate the teams doing the clean-up at their widely separated facilities.

In Dernau, food and drinking-water are now available. German supermarkets having generously provided quantities of food as part of the relief operation. Mobile phone coverage has been restored, clothes are being distributed and shower facilities have been set up at the local school. People’s immediate survival needs have been met.

© Caro Maurer
| Dörte (L) and Meike Näkel’s escape from a flooded winery was the stuff of adventure yarns.

The first need affected wineries have had was to clear water from flooded cellars. Klaus Peter Keller, from Weingut Keller in Rheinhessen, summed it up saying that the first requirements people had were for pumps, pipes and generators. Keller has been trying to assist wineries in the Ahr in this way. There is a need for prompt action as the floodwater is increasingly being contaminated by effluent. The longer people wait before cleaning up, the less chance there is of being able to sell sealed stock that might be salvaged. There are reports that some German supermarkets may have already started selling salvaged schlammflaschen (mud bottles), however officials have now said that such wines may not be sold without being examined for contamination.

The second need wineries have had is for assistance in their clear-up operations. Thankfully, gentle rain has continued to fall, helping to disperse some of the omnipresent sludge, but it needs to be moved with shovels and brooms. Maurer reports there have been many willing volunteers coming to the Ahr to assist with the clear-up. On Saturday approximately 5000 people used a shuttle service set up to help volunteers get into the region to help. She also noted that the roads into the Ahr region were full of bulldozers and excavators being brought from across Germany to assist with the clearance.

Where assistance will be needed next is in saving the 2021 vintage. The vineyards, being mainly on steep slopes, are largely undamaged but, with harvest due in September, the grapes on the vines are undergoing veraison and so will be vulnerable to the rain and the resulting humidity. There is therefore a need to pluck leaves and thin canopies so helicopters can be brought in to spray against rot – the leaf-plucking aids spray penetration. There are plans to spray whole areas of the valley as there are not the resources to do anything else. Producers may lose their organic statuses, but not their entire vintage.

Help is on its way

Many wine producers from across Germany have been quick to offer assistance to the Ahr’s wineries. Nik Weis from St Urbans-Hof delivered a generator to power their pumps. The team from the Van Volxem estate in the Mosel have been working to clean up one of Näkel’s storage facilities. Olivier Haag with a team from Fritz Haag winery in the Mosel are due arrive this week to assist the Näkels with leaf plucking.

There will also be the problem of where to make the wines – most of the region’s wineries have been devastated. Wineries in the Mosel are offering to process the fruit, but for a producer like Meyer-Näkel making more than a dozen wines from different sites and varieties this offers many challenges in terms of logistics. Successfully managing what is already a complex process remotely will be very difficult.

In the long term, the region will need to replace bridges and roads, railway lines and gas pipes. Homes and businesses will need to be rebuilt and equipment replaced. Realistically, the process of recovery will take years, it will possibly take a decade for the region to fully realize.

How can wine consumers help? Other than offering direct practical assistance wine consumers can support the Ahr’s winemakers by seeking out their wines and buying them. Certainly, in the case of Meyer-Näkel, that would be no hardship for an average Pinotphile.

Wine lovers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe can buy wines donated for the relief effort. Winemaker Dirk Würtz, of Weingut St Antony in Nierstein, has sold 10,000 cases of wine for the relief effort in 48 hours. Via his SolidAHRity campaign on Facebook, Würtz raised €650,000 ($768,000) by selling six-bottle cases of wines donated by wineries elsewhere in Germany and Europe. Maurer herself has raised €25,000 by selling 100 cases of donated wines. Further afield, consumers have the opportunity to donate to relief funds through organizations such as the VDP.

Numerous donation pages have already been established:

Ahr – A Wineregion needs Help eV

KSK AHRWEILER

DE94 5775 1310 0000 3395 07

The VDP.Adler hilft eV

Rheingauer Volksbank

Subject: Solidarity Ahr Weinbau

IBAN: DE 21 5109 1500 0000 2045 28

Aktion Deutschland hilft eV

Bank for Social Economy

Keyword »Flood damage July 2021«

IBAN DE62 3702 0500 0000 1020 30

A telephone line for donations has also been established: 0900 55 10 20 30.

Meyer-Näkel, despite their dramatic circumstances, are by no means the only winery affected, but their story serves to illustrate the trauma their region is undergoing. A recent Washington Post article details the horrific experiences of winemaker Lukas Seermann and his neighbors in the town of Altenahr, up-stream of Dernau.

Wine-Searcher was sad to hear that as a result of the strain Meike and Dörte’s father Werner has been admitted to hospital. We wish him a speedy recovery.