by Manfred Klimek / WELT am SONNTAG
It smells of earth, of stable, also, imagined or not, of white pepper. A tractor rumbles in the distance; the Oder and the Polish border are less than ten kilometres away. Nothing suggests what one then encounters in the glass – excellent wines; made where winegrowing should actually be impossible. But it can be done. And how it can. Welcome to Patke Winery – Brandenburg’s boldest place when it comes to winegrowing. A winery with every convenience (including a kind of wine tavern) that can be reached from Berlin by regional express. Here, the north-east suddenly becomes as southern as we would never have suspected.
The impetus came not from the wine world, but from the building site: Matthias Jahnke, strawberry grower, building contractor, a man who gets stuck in before he starts to doubt, planted vines for the first time in 2016. The place: Pillgram, until then shaped above all by ordinary conventional farming and open expanses. Wine was not an issue here, although old records show that winegrowing had already taken place here and in neighbouring Poland – during the warm period of our continent around 700 years ago.
Today, almost five hectares are home to a collection of robust grape varieties that seem made for this age: Solaris, Johanniter, Sauvignac, Regent. All PiWis – fungus-resistant varieties, bred to reduce the use of crop protection, for cultivation in difficult locations, for what is to come. But there is also White Burgundy from classic vine breeding – above all the “S” 2023 (currently sold out, price approx. €16) slips down like a wine from the Palatinate or Styria: little citrus, more stone fruit, quince, which is rare, completely balanced and astonishingly juicy and powerful on the palate. Pure pleasure!
But Matthias Jahnke thinks not only in terms of vines, but also in terms of encounters. In the winery’s farm shop wide open to the Märkisch plain, visitors enjoy Jahnke’s homemade salami, regional cheeses and, finally, knock back a strawberry liqueur from his own production. It is a scene straight out of South Tyrol or Friuli – only here on the eastern edge of Brandenburg. The whole ensemble feels like a rural microcosm, slowed down, but not backward-looking.
In the cellar, Romano Voss is working on a style that does not pander, but always pleases. The white wines show an edge: Solaris with salty precision, Johanniter with an almost Alpine drive, the red Regent as an unpolished character with robust temperament. Much remains in stainless steel, some rests on its full lees – and everything speaks of a signature that wants and can do more than we are inclined to credit it with.
The fact that the Pinot Iskra (€14.50), bottled exclusively for Berliner Weinladen Schmidt, has long since become one of the estate’s most sought-after white wines says a great deal about the self-confidence of this new scene. Dry, fruit-driven, with notes of white blossom, surprisingly much blackcurrant, little rhubarb, it is not only modern – it is also assured in style. Also available there: Patke’s Souvignier Gris (€12.90): a wonderful summer wine.
The fact that, by now, around 90 per cent of the bottles remain in the Berlin-Brandenburg region is due not only to its proximity, but above all to the fact that there is no wine tradition here. The wines are made for the wine world’s coming present – cool, clear, unvarnished. And the guests who come over from Potsdam or Friedrichshain often take away more than just a few bottles: a sense that something is shifting here. Not only climatically – culturally too.
The area is to grow to 15 to 18 hectares. And if sparkling wine, on which Patke is placing major emphasis, is added one day, it will not be an excursion but a continuation of what began long ago.
Because Patke Winery is no longer an experiment. It is proof that wine entrepreneurs can secure their terroir. Even where nobody had previously recognised such a thing. With courage, common sense and a sharp knife for the salami.