Roman Niewodniczanski is definitely an impressive person. Not only because he is tall and very characteristic. More because he decided to walk a path of courage and commitment that might look scary from the outside. But there is sky-rocking Saar Riesling in the inside. The blog story about our visit at winery Van Volxem.
It is a very special feeling to drive through the beautiful Saar area - a river that flows into the Moselle and together they form one of the most famous wine areas in Germany. Especially, when Roman Niewodniczanski is the driver and the vehicle is his Landrover.
While we are driving, Roman is showing us his vineyards. He points left and he points right. He points to the front where three huge vineyards form an impressive mountain. They are all his vineyards. At the same time we drive by a castle of modern architecture on the hill. You can see it from very far away. That is his new winery building.
For a second, you get the feeling that Roman Niewodniczanski owns the entire Saar area. That is of course not the case. But one thing gets very clear: If you think about outstanding Saar Riesling you have to think about Van Volxem.
So many things have been written about Roman. That makes it harder to find out who the real person is. He was mentioned to be the rich kid that got all the money from his wealthy family. He was described as the rebel who said „no“ to his family and walked his own path against all obstacles. He was mentioned to be a megalomaniac just because he was investing heavily in the winery and new vineyards.
We decided to make up our own minds and try to get to know the person by ourselves and not be pre-judgement.
Three convincing reasons to do it
Let us say this in advance. It was an outstanding visit. We laughed together, we were silent together. We enjoyed the easy spring day and we discussed heavier challenges and philosophical aspects of why everyone is doing what they are doing.
When it comes to Roman, you have to take the time to get a little behind the surface. The man has given so many interviews, presented his wines and his winery on so many events and convinced so many people to join his path - there is of course some sort of surface. Helps to keep away the distractors, the negativity and fake followers.
But behind this surface is a man that is highly interested in all the aspects of life. We had deep-dive conversations about business, politics, food, other countries, Louis de Funès, leadership and great teams, architecture, art, design and of course wine, communications and social media. The spectrum was huge. And the conversations are impressive. He is clearly a man who walks through the world open-eyed, open-minded and constantly learning.
The most exciting thing about Roman is his strong will to be successful. He just walks the path that is most certainly leading to success. That might feel a bit uncompromising to other people but it has simply nothing to do with them. If there is a great idea to achieve something big - Roman will most certainly take it and make it successful. There are not many people out there with this straightforward philosophy.
Reason 1: Making the Saar great again
No doubt, wines from the Saar have been on the wine lists of earlier 20th century’s best restaurants around the world. They have been valued higher than wines from Burgundy or the best Bordeaux wines - no matter if London, New York or Hong Kong. There is definitely the potential in this region to make outstanding wines.
And we are not talking sweet Riesling. It used to be dry Rieslings that achieved these super high prices. Because they were silly worth it. They were racy fresh, with a great complexity, high aging potential, at the same time not too heavy in alcohol and very wholesome. All the great vineyards of the Saar can be found on all the lists of the big wine auctions. And they achieved amazing prices.
Roman is a collector of these old documents and he is passionate about the idea of doing everything necessary to go back to these times. The potential is there. The current trends towards wholesome and easy-drinking wines with good structure and some terroir specific character are definitely helpful.
Reason 2: Creating something bigger
A truly impressive moment for us was standing in front of the Geisberg. This is one of the vineyards that were on the wine lists of the 1920s. It was truly famous, one of the very best. Today, hardly many people know about this vineyard. It happened to got forgotten while time moved on. Last it was split up into so many different owners that it completely fell apart and you had trees instead of vines growing there.
This is where Roman comes into play. Together with Markus Molitor the two found one of the very old bottles. They drank it together and decided to invest in this vineyard. They bought all the pieces until they owned the vineyard together. Due to recent challenges Markus decided to sell his part and now Roman owns all of it.
It is a really huge vineyard - 14 hectares, really steep, impressive soil with slate and the famous diabas. The mountain is covered with water sources. And now it gets planted with new vines - step by step. You can see the progress every day.
This is truly impressive. The willingness to learn from the past, find all the puzzle pieces until the picture is complete and then do everything that is necessary and invest whatever it takes. That is a powerful combination to create bigger things.
Reason 3: Leaving something behind for the generations to come
And the funny thing about this example is: Roman will never see the final results of all this. It is a typical project of his - meant for a timeframe of generations. He just wants to create something that might last for decades or centuries. He doesn’t worry about that at all. He just sees the upside of it.
And he also has a great concept of generations in mind: It doesn’t necessarily have to be his own kids who will continue his work. He always speaks about young talented and hard working people that will continue what he started. And that would be a great continuation of his work, because one thing is certain: He works hard and demands a lot from himself.
Not to forget: There was also some Riesling ;-)
Definitely the most important thing for all Riesling lovers is that there is this continuously increasing and super reliable quality of wines from Van Volxem. Everything we tasted was high-level with a lot of typical Saar Riesling characteristics: freshness, great fruit, salty finish and super easy drinking. Not to mention the huge aging potential, even of the basic wines with lower alcohol levels. Making wines like that will definitely get the Saar region back to the high level it came from. Please find all our tasting notes from Van Volxem HERE.
Read our Tasting Notes here.
Weingut Van Volxem
Roman Niewodniczanski
Zum Schlossberg 347
54459 Wiltingen/Saar
Germany
Visit website of winemaker Van Volxem.