Munich | Terroir digital – The VDP.German Prädikat Wine Estates launch Germany’s best vineyard sites into the digital age. With VDP.Vineyard.Online, Internet users can now use any computer in the world to scroll between Lake Constance, Bonn and the Elbe River to find detailed information about the country’s best vineyards. The digital maps do not only depict all VDP.GROSSE LAGE® and VDP.ERSTE LAGE® vineyards, but per mouse-click can also pull down an information window that includes photographs, facts about each vineyard like steepness, elevation, aspect, soil and climate, as well as a descriptive text about its particularities and history. The user can also discover which VDP.Vintners produce wines from the vineyard site. The VDP takes its first step by going “live” with the wine regions Ahr, Franken, Mosel, Mittelrhein, Nahe, Pfalz, Rheingau and Rheinhessen.
Initial step for VDP 4.0
“VDP.VINEYARD. ONLINE is the first step for VDP 4.0. The world is becoming increasingly digital – this development also includes the wine branch. Transparency is a valuable attribute in our changing society. For this reason, we decided to publish the current stand of our 2012 VDP.Classification on the Internet. VDP.Vineyard.Online offers the visitor detailed information about the unique particularities of each demarcated vineyard parcel. Those who browse our maps can click on everything from the vineyard to the vintner and discover not only exactly from where particular wines originate, but also from whom they are made,” states Steffen Christmann, president of the VDP.German Prädikat Wine Estates.
“When it comes to depth and detail of information in our VDP.VINEYARD.ONLINE, the VDP.German Prädikat Wine Estates are leaders in a branch that still remains digitally shy,” says Christmann. “Although classifications are still underway, we are not afraid to share our interim status in clearly depicted and detailed maps. The VDP has championed the quality and origin of German wine since its establishment in 1910. Our entrance into the digital age is yet another milestone.” The central theme of the VDP’s internal classification is “the smaller the origin, the higher the quality” and this theme has prevailed beyond the association and is now the role model for all quality-oriented wine producers in Germany.
Worldwide most extensive online vineyard compendium
“VDP.Vineyard.Online is currently the most extensive online-compendium of vineyards in the world. It sets a new benchmark in access to information and metadata concerning wine regions,” states VDP.Manager Hilke Nagel. VDP.Vineyard.Online will become the central point for all information about the origins of wines made by VDP.German Prädikat Wine Estates. The site connects wine enthusiasts and wine experts with VDP.Vintners and their vineyards. “There are further possible applications of the website. VDP. Vineyard.Online can be used as an information platform within various other systems. In the first phase this will be our vintners, but other wine information platforms and even wine merchant websites are possible,” states Nagel.
The interactive map is the result of a nearly four-year-long process. The demarcation of the vineyards within the regions was particularly complex and Kobeer-Kümmerly & Frey were very dependable partners for this. There is a tremendous amount of work put into the photos, texts, collection of metadata, and programming. “VDP.Vineyard.Online is a mammoth project that is incomparable,” says Nagel. “Special thanks go to the German Wine Institute (GWI) who is undergoing its own digitalisation and we were often able to join efforts.”
Numbers, data, facts
In the course of the VDP.Vineyard.Online project, a total of 771 vineyard sites were demarcated and digitalised. 428 are VDP.GROSSE LAGE® vineyards and 324 are VDP.ERSTE LAGE® vineyards. Approximately 4,600 data were queried from 195 VDP.Vintners. Once all vineyard sites are online, there will be 2,800 photographs available – more than three times that many were shot. Ten people have been occupied with the project since 2014, not including the VDP.Regional offices and VDP.Vintners. Texts have been written, or in the case of Baden, Württemberg, Sachsen and Saale-Unstrut currently being written, for all 428 VDP.GROSSE LAGE vineyards. Everything is translated into English.
VDP.Vineyard.Online on the Internet and in social media
The digital vineyard maps of the VDP.Vineyard.Online can be found at www.vineyard-online.info. The German URL is www.weinberg-online.info. The VDP.German Prädikat Wine Estates will naturally also present this online vineyard atlas on their own website at www.vdp.de. The social media hashtags are #weinbergonline and #vineyardonline
VDP.German Prädikat Wine Estates
The VDP is the world’s oldest and only national association of premium wine estates. 196 VDP.German Prädikat Wine Estates are committed to strict internal quality standards and classifications – from the vine to the bottle. The VDP.Eagle logo (a stylized eagle bearing a cluster of grapes) is the accolade of quality that seals every bottle of VDP wine. It is the guarantee of quality for best artisanal wines from prime vineyards.
