Germany · Pfalz

Weingut Scheuermann

A Niederkirchen family estate in Pfalz, run by brothers Gabriel and Simon Scheuermann, making dry, wood-aged Chardonnay with spontaneous fermentation and lees-grown texture.

The producer

Gabriel and Simon Scheuermann run their family estate in Niederkirchen, within Pfalz’s Mittelhaardt/Deutsche Weinstraße appellation. Ecological cultivation began in 2012, and the vineyards include limestone, loess and sand. In the cellar, fermentations start spontaneously, run dry, and are followed by extended lees ageing in wood, building texture and savoury depth without relying on sweetness.

Bunter Sandstein Chardonnay, a Deidesheim Ortswein, is the clearest bottle in the documented range. Whole-cluster pressing, spontaneous fermentation and barrique maturation—half new oak in the 2025 vintage—bring nectarine, mirabelle, quince, vanilla and nuts into a dry, medium-bodied palate. Tangy acidity, fine spice and a stony mineral note keep the yellow fruit and oak moving through a long finish.

Known for

Dry, barrique-aged Deidesheim Chardonnay shaped by spontaneous fermentation and long lees ageing in wood.

Notable facts

The story

The teenage takeover

Gabriel and Simon Scheuermann took over their family winery while still teenagers. Gabriel was 16 and Simon was 19 when they assumed control, and their family gave the brothers free hands to pursue their own direction at the Niederkirchen estate. The succession did not come with a fixed vineyard formula: ecological cultivation began in 2012, followed by work toward biodynamic principles. Gabriel had reportedly told his kindergarten teacher that he wanted to become a winemaker; years later, he and Simon were the people deciding how the family vineyards would be farmed and how the wines would be made.

From the atlas

Weingut Scheuermann

At A Glance

Weingut Scheuermann is run by brothers Gabriel and Simon Scheuermann in Niederkirchen, Pfalz, within the Mittelhaardt/Deutsche Weinstraße appellation. Their documented bottle, Bunter Sandstein Chardonnay from Deidesheim, combines spontaneous fermentation with barrique ageing, bringing yellow fruit, oak spice and a dry, mineral finish into the same glass.

The Producer

Gabriel and Simon Scheuermann are both the owners and winemakers at the family estate on Hauptstrasse 115 in Niederkirchen. Their work joins vineyard changes with a cellar that allows fermentation to run dry and wines to rest on lees in wood, so Chardonnay can carry ripe fruit without finishing sweet or soft.

Place

Niederkirchen sits in Pfalz’s Mittelhaardt/Deutsche Weinstraße appellation, while Bunter Sandstein Chardonnay is labelled as a Deidesheim Ortswein. Ortswein means village-level origin: this is Chardonnay drawn from Deidesheim vineyards rather than a single named parcel, and its label places the wine in that local frame before the cellar’s barriques add their own flavour and texture.

Soil And Site

The estate’s vineyards include limestone, loess and sand. Those materials are not assigned to a named Chardonnay parcel, but they form the ground beneath a wine whose tasting notes include a mineral base and stony notes; in Bunter Sandstein, that earthier line sits alongside yellow fruit and barrel-derived vanilla rather than being buried by them.

Story

Ecological cultivation began at Scheuermann in 2012, followed by work to introduce biodynamic principles. The vineyard change runs beside a cellar practice of limited intervention, spontaneous fermentation and lower sulphur use: fruit is given time to ferment and settle, and the resulting wines are intended to reach the bottle dry, with lees-grown texture rather than sweetness doing the broadening.

Vineyards And Cellar

Spontaneous fermentation means the brothers do not begin each fermentation with a selected commercial yeast. They let fermentation continue until dry, then use long fermentation and ageing on lees in wood to build stability before bottling. Lees contact can bring breadth and a lightly nutty feel; wood ageing can add spice and shape. In the 2025 Bunter Sandstein Chardonnay, the approach is especially explicit: whole clusters are pressed, fermentation is spontaneous, and the wine spends all its maturation in barriques.

Half of those barriques are new for the 2025 Chardonnay, so vanilla, nuts and fine spice are part of the bottle’s design rather than incidental perfume. The wine’s integrated acidity and mineral foundation keep that oak from turning the finish syrupy, while the dry fermentation leaves the fruit tasting ripe rather than sugary.

Wines

The documented range anchor is Bunter Sandstein Chardonnay, a Deidesheim Ortswein. It is a village Chardonnay built from whole-cluster pressing, spontaneous fermentation and complete barrique ageing, with 50 percent new wood in the 2025 vintage. That method gives the wine a clear structural shape: ripe nectarine, mirabelle and quince meet oak-derived vanilla and nut notes, then move through a juicy, dry palate with acidity and mineral weight.

Across the wines, Scheuermann describes long lees ageing in wood and fermentation to dryness. That points toward bottles with texture, dry finishes and savoury development from time in cellar, rather than an assortment defined here by confirmed grape names or vineyard ranks. Bunter Sandstein is the named example where those choices can be followed all the way from Deidesheim origin to the finished glass.

In The Glass

Bunter Sandstein Chardonnay opens in yellow fruit: nectarine, mirabelle and quince in the 2025, while the 2022 added yellow apple, yellow plum and apple blossom. Smoke and a slight reductive note appeared in the older tasting, bringing a struck-stone edge beside dry wood, vanilla and nuts. The aromatic mix follows the wine’s spontaneous fermentation and barrique élevage, with fruit and oak kept in the same register.

On the palate it is dry and medium-bodied, with juicy yellow fruit through the middle and tangy, moderately high acidity carrying the weight. Fine spice, a touch of oak and a stony mineral note lengthen the finish. The effect is not a lean, citrus-led Chardonnay: whole-cluster pressing, lees time and barrel maturation give it more breadth, while the acidity keeps the fruit and wood moving to a long close.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with Bunter Sandstein Chardonnay. It is the estate’s most fully documented bottle: a Deidesheim Ortswein made from whole clusters, fermented spontaneously and raised entirely in barriques, half new in 2025. Expect ripe yellow fruit, vanilla, nuts, fine spice and a mineral line, with medium body, dry texture and acidity that stays present through the finish. It puts Pfalz Chardonnay, village origin and Scheuermann’s wood-and-lees cellar work in one bottle.

Anecdote

Gabriel and Simon Scheuermann took over their family winery while they were still teenagers. Gabriel was 16 and Simon was 19 when the brothers assumed control, and their family gave them free hands to pursue their own direction. They did not inherit a finished set of rules for the vineyards and cellar: ecological cultivation began in 2012, and work then started toward biodynamic principles. Gabriel had reportedly announced much earlier, while still in kindergarten, that he wanted to become a winemaker, but the takeover came when he was old enough to make the vineyard decisions himself, alongside Simon at the family estate in Niederkirchen.

Final Word

Scheuermann’s clearest calling card is dry Deidesheim Chardonnay shaped by whole-cluster pressing, spontaneous fermentation and barriques. The yellow fruit, oak spice, lees texture and mineral finish make Bunter Sandstein a direct way into the brothers’ work in Pfalz.

Sources

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