NOT EVERYTHING GERMAN NEEDS TO BE RIESLING –
NOT EVERYTHING GERMAN NEEDS TO BE RIESLING –
HANS WIRSCHING WOULD LIKE A WORD ABOUT SILVANER.
FRANCONIAN WINE BELONGS AT THE TABLE
Hans Wirsching’s wines are made for food.
Silvaner’s restrained fruit, herbal spice and mineral structure make it a natural partner for fish, shellfish, vegetables and lighter dishes. Its savoury side also works particularly well with asparagus—an ingredient capable of making less cooperative wines reconsider their career choices.
Bacchus brings more aromatic fruit and works well with salads, fresh herbs, mildly spiced dishes and lighter Asian cooking. Spätburgunder offers bright red fruit and gentle structure for poultry, pork, mushrooms and charcuterie.
That versatility makes Hans Wirsching a valuable addition to our portfolio. These are distinctive wines for restaurant lists, considered food pairings and drinkers ready to look beyond the familiar German varieties.
Ancient soils. Fourteen generations.And Silvaner with no intention of remaining overlooked.
FOURTEEN GENERATIONS IN IPHOFEN
Hans Wirsching joins our portfolio through an exclusive partnership with one of Franconia’s most established family wineries.
Based in Iphofen beneath the Schwanberg, the estate produces precise, characterful wines shaped by the region’s gypsum-rich Keuper soils. Silvaner is the speciality, supported by aromatic Bacchus and elegant Spätburgunder from distinctive vineyard sites including Iphöfer Kalb and Iphöfer Kronsberg.
The Wirsching family has been involved with wine for fourteen generations.
At this point, it is probably more than a passing interest.
WHY WE CHOSE
HANS WIRSCHING
We look for producers that could not convincingly come from anywhere else.
Hans Wirsching belongs unmistakably to Franconia.
The wines are dry, clear and quietly expressive, with freshness, herbal spice and a mineral structure that speaks directly of Iphofen’s soils. They have enough personality to interest experienced wine drinkers without becoming overly complicated for everyone else.
Silvaner sits at the heart of the range. Often overlooked outside Germany, it becomes something far more compelling here: textured but fresh, subtle but certainly not shy, and particularly good at the table.
Bacchus provides the fragrance. Spätburgunder brings red fruit and delicacy. The individual vineyards supply the differences that make the range worth exploring properly.
Our exclusive relationship allows us to introduce the estate as it deserves: not as a history lesson, but as a living family winery producing some extremely persuasive reasons to drink more Franconian wine.
Fourteen generations of experience. No pressure on the fifteenth.
A FAMILY NAME
SINCE 1528
The Wirsching family’s connection with wine can be traced to 1528, when records mention a Hans Wirsching from Iphofen donating a vineyard to the Ebrach monastery.
The modern estate took shape after the First World War. Hans Wirsching returned to Iphofen and helped restore vineyards damaged by phylloxera, eventually establishing the winery under his own name in 1939. He became particularly associated with Silvaner and planted Franconia’s first Scheurebe in 1952.
His sons Hans and Heinrich took over in 1966. Hans developed the fresh, reductive and elegant style that became a signature of the estate, while Heinrich expanded the winery and strengthened its international reputation.
Andrea Wirsching has managed the business since 2014, with further generations of the family already involved across the estate.
The methods have evolved. The surname has proved rather durable..
the home of Silvaner
Hans Wirsching calls Iphofen the Home of Silvaner.
The grape certainly looks comfortable there.
Silvaner has an unusual ability to express the soil in which it grows. Around Iphofen, that soil is gypsum Keuper: ancient layers of clay and gypsum that give the wines their characteristic structure, herbal spice, savoury depth and mineral finish.
The estate works with almost 90 hectares of vineyards and focuses predominantly on dry white wines. Silvaner leads the plantings, accompanied by Riesling, Scheurebe and white Burgundian varieties. Spätburgunder provides the principal red-wine expression.
Winemaking is designed to preserve clarity rather than manufacture weight. The resulting wines have precision, freshness and sufficient texture to develop in the glass—and, in the best examples, in the cellar.
The geology is more than 200 million years old.
iphofen
vineyrd by vineyard
Iphofen’s vineyards share a regional identity, but each one brings something different to the bottle.
Iphöfer Kalb contains a particularly high proportion of gypsum. It is a cooler site, producing wines with freshness, fragrance and a lighter, more immediate character. This makes it particularly well suited to varieties such as Silvaner and Bacchus, preserving aroma without sacrificing structure.
Iphöfer Kronsberg is a south-facing Keuper site influenced by cool air flowing from nearby woodland. Its wines are known for balance, delicate fruit and elegance rather than unnecessary weight.
These distinctions allow Hans Wirsching to show how variety, soil, slope and exposure work together. The differences are not exaggerated in the cellar. They are allowed to appear naturally in the glass.
Same town.
Different postcode for the roots.