Philipp Reiss
Baden Baden, Steinbacher, Germany
 

Philipp Reiss is the fourth generation of his family to grow fruit and grapes on the same land in Steinbach, part of Baden-Baden's Rebland, right on the edge of the Alsace border, but the first to actually bottle and sell wine under his own name.
 

His great-grandfather Franz sold fruit at the weekly market and simply delivered the grapes to the local cooperative, as generations had before him. Philipp studied viticulture and oenology in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, then took what he'd learned to Burgenland in Austria and to South Africa before coming home to start his own label in 2020.
 

He now farms just under 2 hectares organically, though uncertified, across the Neuweierer Heiligenstein and Steinbacher Stich den Buben sites, growing Riesling, Spätburgunder, Grauburgunder, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Blaufränkisch and Muskateller. The wines ferment and age in his great-grandfather's historic cellar, in a mix of French barriques and Georgian qvevri, with very little sulphur added.
 

Alongside the wine, Philipp also makes cidre and spirits from the old orchard meadows around Steinbach, using pears, apples and the local Bühler plum, keeping the family's older fruit growing tradition alive alongside the newer wine one.